THE 

Evidence  of  Immortality 

JEROME  c4,  ANDERSON 


\  \\l\inim 


LIBRARY 

OF  THK 

University  of  California, 

GIFT  OF* 

Received         Qftd&n  >  '89r/ 

Accession  No.  /  /<3  3  /    •    Class  No.  { 


a 


**~4~6~~~6  ^2,  c-1<*£6+t_ 


*-**  *»- 


V. 


DR.  JER.OME  ANDERSCW 
WHO  DIED  YES- 


TERDAY 


Tingley  of  Point  Lomas,  Suc- 
cumbs to  a  Lingering  Illness, 


HIS  CONTROVERSY  WITH 
WOMAN  WELL  KNOWN 


after  a  lingering  ill  - 


Dr.  Anderson  had  gained  much  pub 
owing    to    his   determined   views  and   was 


THEOSQPHIST 

OF  NOTE 
DEAD 


Dr,  Jerome  Anderson,  Who  At- 
tacked Claims  of  Mrs,  K,  A. 


Dr.  Jerome  Anderson,  one  of  the  most 
>  prominent  Theosophists  of  the  world. 
T  passed  away  yesterday  at  his  residence, 
+  rreet    * 

4  ness 

t 

♦  drawn  into  prominence  two  years 

♦  ago  when  thwugh  the  medium  of  the  press 

♦  Tingley   and   the 
X  United    Brotherhood,   of   which  sect  she  Is 

tgley  sued  General  Otis 
•f  of   the   Los   Angeles   •Times"   for 
y  reference   to   the   Point   Lomas  settlement 
T  and  during  the  trial  Dr.  Anderson,  though 
Jnot  called  on  the  witness  stand  by  the  de- 

trong  advocate  for  ( 
I  by  his  att. 

Among  other  sensational  accusations  made 
by    Dr.    Anderson   at   tb-i 

as   not  a  Theosophb; 
charged    her   with   merely   being   a  sharp, 

: literate  spirit  n. 
humbugged  the  publb 

ttera  to  show  t:  oman 

lacking  even  the  first  rudiments  of  a  good 

ion.     He  also  accused  her  of  forging 

.-sages   supposed   to 
irit   world.     Dr 
caused   a  profound  aei 

Tingley  replied,  and 
Lormy  letters  were  published  contain- 
ing the  accusations  of  each  side. 

Dr.   Anderson,  at  the  time  of  his  death, 
was  fifty-six  years  of  age.    He  was  born  in 
the  State  of  Indiana  and  came  to  Call. 
thirty- three    years  ago.    He  af 
I  medical     department  of  the  U. 
>mia   and  upon   graduate 
me.     His  first   position   v 
I  6urgeon   on   a  steamer  of  the  I 
|  Steamship  Company  running  do^ 

He  then  practiced  medicine  in  tb 
•Joaquin    Valley    for    two  or  the 

past  twenty-five  years  he  has  practiced  con- 
|  tinually  in  this  city. 

He  had  been  a  strong  apostle  of  theosophy 
during  the  past  decade.    At  the  time  of  his 
death  he  was  president  of  thf 
cisco   Branch  of  the  Theo- 
and  also     president  of   tb  on  of 

Branches  of  the  Theosophical  £ 
the  Pacific  Coast.  He  was  a  well-known 
author  on  the  faith.  Two  of  his  best-known 
books  are  'Reincarnation"  and  'Karma  or 
the  Law  of  Cause  and  Effect."  He  was  also 
well  known  as  a  lecturer. 

The  funeral  takes  place  from  h 
dence  on    Monday.     The  body  will  1 
mated  at  Cypress  Lawn. 


THE    EVIDENCE    OF    IMMORTALITY 


Boohs  by  Jerome  H.  Hndcrson 

REINCARNATION  :  A  Study  of  the  Hu- 
man Soul.      Paper,  50c;   cloth,  $1.00. 

SEPTENARY  MAN :  The  Soul  in  Relation 
to  the  Avenues  of  Consciousness.  Paper, 
50c;  cloth,  $1.00. 

KARMA  :  A  Study  of  the  Law  of  Cause  and 
Effect.    Paper,  50c  ;  cloth.  $  1 .00. 

THE  EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY: 
Paper,  40c;  cloth,  $1.00. 

DRIFTINGS  IN  DREAMLAND.  Poems. 
Cloth,  $1.00. 

LOT  is  PUBLISHING   COMPANY 

117h    II  \i;ki   f    MliKKT 

■as    rBAjrenoo 


THE 


Evidence  of   Immortality 


BY 


JEROME  A.  ANDERSON,  M.  D. 

AUTHOR  OP  "  REINCARNATION,"  ETC. 


There  dwelleth  in  the  heart  of  every  creature,  O  Arjuna,  the  Master, 
Ishvara.—BHA  GA  VA  D-GITA . 


SAN   FRANCISCO 
THE    LOTUS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

1170    MARKET    STREET 

1899 


Ooraueas  .1 1  i.v.  i«99 
r,v  Jxbomi  A.  AXDi 
1733/ 


Press  of  the  Academy  Printing  House  San  Francisco 


TO 


THK  TIIKKK   AS    YKT    r\  REQUITED  SERVITORS  OF  HUMANITY 


1b.      fl>.     3B, 

m.   <a.    3. 
*.    a.    xr. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/evidenceofimmortOOanderich 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I  page 

The  Exaggerated  Importance  of  Thought        .        .        1 

CHAPTER    II 
•>C0N8CI0U8NTE8S 8 

CHAPTER    III 

Thought  and  Imagination 16 

CHAPTER   IV 

Thought,  Reason,  Intiition,  Instinct,  and  Feeling      23 

CHAPTER  V 
Effect  of  Death  upon  the  Consciousness  of  Life      34 

CHAPTER    VI 

Effect  of  Death  upon  the  Senses     ....      43 

CHAPTER  VII 

Effect  of  Death  upon  the  Desire-Consciousness    .      52 

CHAPTER    VIII 

Effect  of  Death  upon  Thought  and  Imagination  .      57 

CHAPTER    IX 
Effect  of  Death  upon  Intuition  and  Feelings        .      69 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  X 

Thk  Mortal  and  ihk  Immortal  Max  ...       72 

CHAPTER  XI 
Thk  Process  of  Death 79 

CHAPTER  XII 
The  Rk-Emhodimext  of  thk  Son 88 

CHAPTER   XIII 
The  Naturk  ok  thk  Son 118 

CHAPTER   XIV 
I         thk  Dead  Comminkmk? L28 

CHAPTER   XV 
Tin:   HOMI  ok  thk   Son 135 


APPENDIX    I 
In   Dkkkkk  Drkamlwh 141 

APPENDIX   II 

The  World's  Crucified  Saviours       .        .        .        .156 


INTRODUCTION 


This  essay  is  an  examination  from  a  scientific  view- 
point into  the  probability  of  the  continued  existence  of 
human  life  after  the  death  of  the  body.  Of  course,  by 
scientific  is  meant  the  light  of  reason  applied  to  the  phe- 
nomena of  life  —  not  a  demonstration  by  means  of  the 
microscope  or  balances.  Perhaps  philosophical  would  be 
a  better  word  to  use  in  describing  its  method,  but  as  all 
true  science  is  philosophical,  and  all  true  philosophy 
scientific,  the  writer  is  not  disposed  to  insist  too  strongly 
upon  the  term  used.  It  is  believed  that  a  careful  analysis 
of  undisputed  phenomena  of  existence,  which  have  been 
perhaps  overlooked,  or  which  have  not  been  assigned  their 
proper  importance,  will  establish  the  truth  of  the  persist- 
ence of  life  beyond  the  grave  as  certainly  as  any  other  fact 
of  existence.  It  will  assuredly  place  it  upon  a  much 
firmer  basis  than  that  enjoyed  by  many  of  the  accepted 
scientific  hypotheses,  such  as  those  which  attempt  to 
prove  the  existence  and  functions  of  the  ether,  .atoms, 
matter  itself,  etc. 

Certainly,  there  can  be  no  topic  of  greater  or  more  pro- 
found interest  to  the  human  mind  than  that  of  its  own 
survival  after  death.  But,  as  is  so  often  the  case,  the 
proof  has  been  sought  for  afar  when  it  lay  immediately  at 
hand ;  has  been  accredited  to  divine  revelation  in  books, 
instead  of  to  divine  revelations  in  nature.  The  writer  is 
willing  t<>  '_">  so  far  as  to  assert  that  if  the  proof  of  the  ex- 


viii  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

istence  of  the  soul  after  death  be  not  demonstrable  from 
the  phenomena  of  this  present  life  by  cold-blooded,  scien- 
tific reasoning  from  the  known  to  the  unknown,  then  it  i> 
B  chimera,  and  we  may  as  well  relegate  it  to  the  dogmatist 
and  fanatic,  and  have  done  with  it  forever.  In  this  a 
tion  he  is  in  perfect  sympathy  with  the  thought  in  Hegel's 
mind  when  he  wrote,  "  All  that  God  is  he  imparts  and  re- 
veals, and  He  does  so  at  first  in  and  through  nature."  All 
mysteries  stand  revealed  first,  last,  and  all  the  time,  in  na- 
ture, had  we  but  eyes  to  see  and  hearts  to  comprehend. 
So,  let  us  seek  in  nature  for  the  answer  to  this  problem, 
Do  we  live  after  death  V 


BRAft 
or  rwnt 

DIVERSITY 

The  Evidence  of  Immortality 

CHAPTER   I 

THE   EXAGGERATED   IMPORTANCE  OF  THOUGHT 

"y^"X)GITO,  ergo  sum,"  wrote  Des  Cartes  after 
V  ^  realizing  the  great  truth  that  the  source 
and  meaning  of  life  must  be  sought  with- 
in. It  was  a  terse,  startling  statement,  and  was  at 
once  seized  upon  by  the  large  class  who  take  their 
thinking  at  second-hand.  But  never  was  a  philo- 
sophical truth  more  perverted.  Translated  as  "I 
think,  therefore  I  exist,"  it  has  been  made  a  shibbo- 
leth by  those  who  sail  in  shallow  philosophical  seas. 
A  better  translation  would  have  been,  "I  think, 
therefore  I  am,"  thus  linking  life  with  the  idea  of 
eternal  being,  rather  than  with  an  "  out-from,"  tran- 
sitory existence.  Neither  Des  Cartes  nor  his  best  in- 
terpreters limited  it  to  thought  alone,  but  included 
with  it  other  phases  of  consciousness.  The  original 
meaning  of  Des  Cartes  has  thus  been  quite  lost  sight 
of,  and  attention  directed  wholly  to  thought  as  the 
sole  phenomenon  of  existence,  the  one  proof  of  life, 
the  single  and  distinguishing  attribute  of  the  human 
soul.      The  error  has  grown,  and  widened  until   it 


2  THE   EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

taints  the  entire  philosophy  of  the  West  and  ifl  the 
direct  cause  of  much  of  the  uncertainty  which  sur- 
rounds existence  after  death.  Thought,  as  most  men 
conceive  of  it,  is  certainly  destroyed  by  death,  and 
having  been  taught  to  look  upon  man  as  a  thinker 
only,  and  upon  existence  as  depending  upon  thought, 
men  have  been  driven  either  to  deny  existence  after 
death  altogether,  as  do  modern  materialists,  or  to 
set  up  a  future  life  incongruous  to,  and  ethically 
disconnected  with,  that  of  the  present,  as  do  modern 
Christians.  The  latter,  indeed,  have  put  forward 
many  theories  to  bridge  the  ethical  chasm  between 
this  life  and  the  heaven  or  hell  of  the  next,  such  as 
vicarious  atonement,  predestination,  forgive] 
and  other  unjust  and  unjustifiable  hypotheses,  hut 
all  have  signally  failed  when  ethically  examined. 

The  error,  originated  in  part,  at  least,  in  the  man- 
ner indicated,  lias  been  perpetuated  because  of  the 
exaggerated  importance  given  to  this  earth -life  at 
counterbalancing  eternity.  Thought  is  of  para- 
mount importance  to  this  life,  but  plays  a  minor 
part,  indeed,  in  the  drama  of  eternal  life.  It  c< 
to  be  the  dominant  faculty,  for  reasons  which  we 
shall  examine  hereafter,  when  man  passes  beyond 
the  threshold  of  death.  To  one  engaged  in  blast- 
ing a  drill  is  essential;  to  a  farmer,  some  variant 
of  the  plow.  So  to  the  soul,  while  investigating  the 
phenomena  of  an  unexplored  universe,  the  power 
to  reason  from  the  familiar  to  the  unfamiliar,  from 
the  group  of  phenomena  to  the  underlying  law  of 


EXAGGERATED   IMPORTANCE   OF  THOUGHT  3 

which  they  are  the  apparently  diverse  expression,  is 
absolutely  essential.  But  just  as  the  miner  who 
turns  his  attention  to  extracting  the  gold  from  the 
quartz  which  he  has  blasted  needs  and  uses  other 
tools,  so  man,  when  he  passes  from  this  life  of 
struggle  and  active  comparison  to  one  of  rest  and 
recuperation,  lays  aside  his  faithful  servant,  reason, 
to  use  other  equally  divine,  and  now  more  import- 
ant, faculties  of  his  soul. 

Thought  is  truly  a  divine  faculty,  but  an  exceed- 
ingly imperfect  one  at  the  present  stage  of  man's 
evolution.  Most  of  the  wars  and  woes  under  which 
mankind  suffer  today  are  the  direct  result  of  faulty 
thinking;  of  drawing  differing  conclusions  from  the 
same  or  similar  data.  Nor  is  this  fault  found  wholly 
among  the  ignorant.  It  invades  the  very  highest 
philosophic  reasoning  and  has  led  to  such  widely 
varying  schools  as  Idealists,  Materialists,  Theists, 
and  Pantheists,  and  so  on,  each  of  which  supports 
its  claims  by  the  most  searching  appeal  to  reason  of 
which  it  is  capable.  "  Holy  wars  "  mark  the  path- 
ways of  blind  belief  attempting  to  force  its  own 
convictions  upon  others;  philosophy  has  also  its 
anathemas,  while  no  two  scientists  are  at  one  on 
any  of  the  fundamentals  of  their  respective  de- 
partments.* 

This  lack  of  agreement  ought  to  have  warned  man 
that  thought  was  a  somewhat  frail  reed  upon  which 

•  See  J.  B.  Stallo's  "  Some  Modern  " r^  "  jj*   -gim^desires  the 

exact  proof  of  this. 


4  THE   EVIDENCE   OF  IMMORTALITY 

to  lean,  and  to  have  led  him  to  search  for  something 
more  stable.  But  so  ingrained  is  the  idea  of  thought 
as  the  sine  qua  non  of  existence  that  with  many, 
and,  indeed,  with  most,  Western  thinkers  cessation 
of  thought  is  synonymous  with  the  cessation  of  life. 
Existence  without  thought  is  to  them  absurd  and 
even  unthinkable.  "I  think,  therefore  I  e.\ 
is  the  reading  which  they  now  give  their  shibboleth. 

This  is  not  so  strange  when  we  consider  that  every 
phenomenon  of  life  is  intended  to  and  does  provoke 
thought  —  else  we  would  be  fori  as  cattle  upon  the 
hills.  For  this  reason  the  very  form  of  man  is  con- 
structed so  as  to  afford  the  largest  cerebral  develop- 
ment possible,  as  well  as  to  ensure  it  the  most  com- 
plete protection  from  injury.  Thought  is  compelled 
into  activity  by  the  incesflanl  bombardment  of  the 
senses;  its  dormant  powers  evoked,  nolens  volens, 
by  the  environment  in  which  the  body  is  placed, 
So  intentionally  hostile  is  this  environment  that 
man  would  speedily  be  swept  from  the  earth  but  for 
thought.  He  must  rely  upon  it  at  all  times.  It  is 
his  sword,  of  which  he  has  thrown  away  the  scab- 
bard; the  one  gift  which  enables  him  to  have  "do- 
minion over  all  the  creatures  of  the  earth."  But  its 
activity  ceases  at  death.  The  magnificent  cerebral 
development  is  destroyed;  the  bombardment  of  the 
senses  ceases,  thought  no  longer  is  king,  and  we 
have  to  look  to  the  energies  of  other  faculties  for 
evidence  of  the  permanence  of  life. 

Even  a  superficial  analysis  of   man's  conscious- 


EXAGGERATED   IMPORTANCE  OF  THOUGHT  5 

ness  reveals  its  compound  nature  and  shows  con- 
clusively that  thought  is  only  one  of  many  faculties 
of  the  soul.  Just  as  the  prism  breaks  up  the  seem- 
ing unity  and  purity  of  the  white  light  into  seven 
startlingly  dissimilar,  and  even  opposite,  constitu- 
ents, so  analysis  shows  that  which  seemed  but  the 
one  consciousness  to  be  composed  of  similarly  diver- 
sified, and  also  apparently  opposing,  faculties. 

As  a  fundamental  faculty  we  have  the  conscious- 
ness of  life  itself;  the  recognition  of  existence. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  man  shares  this  conscious- 
ness with  all  the  lower  kingdoms  of  nature.  With 
Des  Cartes  he  may  go  to  thought  to  prove  that  he 
exists,  but  he  need  not  do  so  to  feel  that  he  does. 
Reason  is  entirely  unnecessary  to  this  recognition. 
Indeed,  in  the  animal  kingdom,  it  has  been  termed 
an  instinct,  because  of  the  careful  protection  of 
their  lives  by  animals  devoid  of  reason.  Even  the 
sensitive  plant  shrinks  from  the  touch  lest  its  exist- 
ence be  endangered,  and  all  nature  cries  out  with 
one  voice*  "  Let  me  live  I  let  me  live  ! " 

It  is  the  undifferentiated  consciousness  of  the 
great  ocean  of  Being,  in  which  all  that  is  exists.  It 
vibrates  through  the  rock;  it  is  quivering  in  the 
massive  oak.  "Out  of  nothing  nothing  can  come;" 
and  the  recognition  of  this  first  divine  thrill  of  ex- 
istence did  not  arise  with  man,  nor  even  with  the 
kingdoms  immediately  beneath  him.  It  is  univer- 
sal; it  arose  in  and  with  the  first  faint  flutter  which 
attracted  the  atoms  of  star  dust  —  if,  indeed,  it  does 


6  THE   EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

not  long  antedate  this.  Its  first  expression  may  be 
one  great  cosmic,  hierarchial  note,  which,  perhaps, 
voices  an  ecstacy  that  each  succeeding  differentia- 
tion in  form  may  lessen  rather  than  increase.  The 
bliss  of  being  is  certainly  not  so  perfect  in  man  at 
present  as  in  the  lower,  unthinking  kingdoms,  for  it 
is  tainted  with  doubt  and  uncertainty,  its  joys  are 
recognized  as  fleeting,  its  course  saddened  by  the 
knowledge  of  the  gulf  of  apparent  extinction,  from 
which  there  is  no  possible  escape,  which  awaits  its 
seeming  close.  The  animal  takes  no  thought;  it 
cats,  drinks,  and  is  contented;  for  it  tomorrow  con- 
tains no  hint  of  ceasing  to  be.  Only  when  life  is 
endangered  does  it  seek  to  save  it;  while  life  flows 
its  natural  course  the  animal  simply  is.  With  the 
animal  it  is  "I  am,"  not  "I  exist." 

It  must  be  evident  to  the  dullest  comprehension 
that  the  consciousness  of  life,  of  being,  pervades  all 
nature,  and  that  man  holds  no  monopoly  of  it.  It 
is  also  evident  that  he  does  not  depend  upon  his 
fleeting,  constantly  changing  body  for  its  manifes- 
tation. He  may  do  so,  to  be  sure,  for  its  manifesta- 
tion in  that  body,  but  to  remove  this  by  death 
only  causes  the  indestructible  principle  to  change 
its  vehicle  for  manifestation.  For  no  manifested, 
and  therefore  limited,  life  can  be  except  it  have  a 
material  form  to  focus  and  limit  that  manifesta- 
tion. Even  illimitable  Space  itself  is  but  the  body 
of  God;  its  formlessness  the  silent  testimony  of  a 
Divinity  above   and   beyond  all  form  limitations. 


EXAGGERATED   IMPORTANCE  OF  THOUGHT  7 

So  that  man,  unless  by  some  unthinkable  process 
we  suppose  him  either  inside  or  outside  of  space, 
must  always  have  a  body,  even  though  in  the  last 
differentiation  this  be  but  the  body  of  God — with 
whom  he  would  then  be  at  one.  Compelled  by 
death  to  abandon  the  gross  physical  body,  he 
would  still  feel  the  same  certainty  of  existence  in 
inner  and  more  ethereal  bodies,  until,  if  all  matter 
we  can  comprehend  be  stripped  off,  his  conscious- 
ness would  exist  in  space  and  possess  a  body  of 
which  not  even  infinite  power  could  deprive  him. 


CHAPTER    II 


SENSE-CONSCIOUSNESS 


ANOTHER  faculty  of  the  soul,  or  mode  of 
consciousness,  is  that  of  sense-perception. 
Man's  body  is  composed  of  numerous  or- 
gans; some  sensory,  some  for  locomotion,  some  for 
thought,  others  for  desire,  and  still  others  for  vital 
or  for  purely  assimilative  purposes,  and  all  intend- 
ed to  enable  him  to  contact  this  plane  of  being, 
maintain  his  foothold  here,  and  to  assimilate  the 
wisdom  accruing  out  of  his  manifold  experiences. 
The  sensory  organs  are  so  constructed  as  to  inter- 
cept, and  enable  him  to  take  conscious  note  of,  vi- 
brations covering  a  vast,  but  very  incomplete,  are 
of  the  infinite  cycle  ol  life.  From  smell  or  touch 
up  to  the  almost  infinitely  rapid  vibrations  of 
color,  his  differing  organs  record  the  impressions  or 
sensations  produced  by  vibrations  reaching  him 
from  without.  There  is,  however,  such  a  great  hi- 
atus between  the  higher  and  the  lower  of  these  as 
to  more  than  suggest  the  possibility  of  his  evolving 
other  sense  organs  to  enable  him  to  contact  still 
wider  areas  of  sensuous  existence  hereafter.  Put- 
ting this  aside  for  the  present,  we  find  the  range  of 
his  sense-consciousness  to  be  so  great,  and  its  recep- 


SENSE-CONSCIOUSNESSS  9 

tion  of  impressions  by  constant  contact  with  ma- 
terial things  so  multitudinous,  that  he  has  all  his 
attention  fully  occupied  if  he  segregates,  analyzes, 
and  gathers  the  ethical  meaning  of  the  phenomena 
with  which  they  bring  him  into  relation.  So  again 
we  see  the  necessity  of  thought  as  the  dominant 
faculty  during  embodiment  upon  earth. 

Like  other  animals,  man's  response  to  sense-im- 
pressions must  always  have  been,  and  still  is, 
Largely  mechanical.  But  as  evolutionary  ages 
rolled  by,  there  was  accomplished  the  conscious 
segregation  or  differentiation  of  these  stimuli  into 
great  classes  and  the  consequent  specialization  of 
organs  therefor,  and  so  gradually  and  impercepti- 
bly was  built  up  man's  present  sense-organs.  Just 
how  these  sense-impressions  reach  the  soul,  the 
transient  tenant  of  the  body,  is  not  within  the 
province  of  our  present  inquiry;  suffice  it  to  say 
that  the  unity  of  source  of  all  consciousness  consti- 
tutes a  common  bond  between  the  most  highly  de- 
developed  and  the  most  lowly,  which  enables  each 
to  touch  a  base  where  consciousness  is  common  to 
both,  so  that  the  soul  can  be,  and  is,  conscious  of 
the  lowly  vibrations  of  its  sensuous  body  because 
of  there  being,  from  their  common  origin,  some- 
thing in  its  higher  development  which  recognizes 
this, for  it  is  a  portion  of  the  consciousness  of  the 
lower.  Were  it  not  for  this  common  basis  in  which 
all  forms  and  differentiations  of  consciousness 
must  root,  entities  at  differing  stages  of  their  evo- 


10  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

lution  would  be  absolutely  cut  off  from  all  con- 
sciousness of  other  portions  of  the  universe.  In- 
deed, man  is  now  conscious  of  but  that  small  por- 
tion which  he  has  actually  experienced,  and  by  ex- 
perience evolved  the  latent  potentiality  of  so  doing 
into  an  active  potency.  For  no  manifesting  entity 
possesses  any  state  of  consciousness  which  it  has 
not  evolved  by  actual  experience  in  the  Cycle  of 
Necessity,  or  arena  of  evolution.  Man  knows  and 
recognizes  his  material  universe  because,  and  only 
because,  he  has  BEER  that  universe  in  all  its  myriad 
details.  He  has  buried  himself  in  its  rocks,  pulsa- 
ted with  and  in  its  rythmic  oceans,  felt  the  peace 
and  strength  of  its  mighty  oaks,  or  he  could  not 
now  be  conscious  that  such  things  exi 

While  thought  takes  cognizance  of  these  m 
impressions,  it  is  not  necessary  to  their  existence. 
nor  even  to  their  recognition.  The  pure  ecstasy 
arising  out  of  the  highest  sense-consciousness  ex- 
cludes thought  entirely.  Indeed,  thought  would 
only  mar  its  perfectness.  Who  that  has  ever  had 
his  soul  enwrapped  in  the  tones  of  a  perfect  har- 
mony thought  about,  or  tried  to  analyse,  what  WM 
taking  place?  While  it  lasted  time  was  not; 
thought  had  ceased  its  querulous  interrogations, 
and  the  soul  was  content.  It  had  no  questionings, 
no  doubts;  it  did  not  even  "exist;"  it  was. 

Similarly,  beautiful  landscapes,  the  low,  ceaseless 
murmur  of  the  restless  waves  breaking  upon  the 
shore,  the  roar  of  the  storm,  the  stillness  after  it 


SENSE-CONSCIOUSNESS  11 

has  passed  —  all  these  things  reach  not  the  soul 
through  the  avenue  of  thought.  They  may  evoke 
thought,  but  they  are  really  a  memory,  a  reminis- 
cense,  of  the  soul,  and  penetrate  it  by  means  of  the 
avenues  of  feeling.  And,  if  perfect,  they  do  not 
even  evoke  thought.  Man  does  not  have  to  reason 
with  himself  to  know  that  he  is  happy;  he  does  not 
even  think  of  it  until  after  the  wave  of  perfect 
Miss  has  passed. 

The  vibrations  of  seeing,  hearing,  tasting,  and  bo 
on,  roll  in  upon  the  soul  and  man  becomes  con- 
scious of  them  entirely  independent  of  any  think- 
ing process.  He  usually  does  connect  them  with 
thought,  but  the  connection  is  not  essential  to  their 
existence  or  recognition.  It  is  largely  due  to  the 
association  of  ideas.  At  the  awakening  of  sensuous 
life  in  man  at  each  birth  his  world  is  new  and  won- 
derful, and  he  is  little  else  than  an  animated  inter- 
rogation point  —  as  all  who  have  the  care  of  child- 
ren will  recognize.  The  habit  so  engendered  be- 
comes despotic  in  its  sway,  and,  indeed,  nature  in- 
tended this,  so  that,  automatically  and  by  the  asso- 
ciation of  ideas,  his  questioning  analysis  goes  on 
long  after  perfect  familiarity  with  any  phenome- 
non has  rendered  this  unnecessary. 

But  the  crowning  proof  that  sense-consciousness 
is  distinct  from,  and  not  dependent  upon,  thought  is 
to  be  found  in  the  animal  kingdom.  Here  it  is  seen 
in  all  its  purity  and  perfectness,  although  here  it  is 
already  at  work  upon  its  Herculean  task  of  evoking 


12  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

the  latent  power  of  thinking  in  a  soul  which  is 
revelling  only  in  the  senses.  The  higher  animals 
unquestionably  think,  but  the  star-fish  as  unques- 
tionably does  not — its  slow,  laborious  response  to 
sense  stimuli  has  not  yet  reached  this  plane  of  con- 
sciousness. But,  natura  non  saltet,  and  we  must  not 
confound  sense -consciousness  with  thought  - 
sciousness  because  the  two  glide  imperceptibly  into 
each  other.  And  they  are  but  two  differentiations 
of  the  one  great  Primal  Consciousness,  just  as  the 
senses  themselves  are  but  lower  differentiations  of 
the  one  sense-consciousm £8. 

Sense-consciousness  is  thus  seen  to  be  the  servant 
who  prepares  the  way  for  thought  —  the  pioneer  who 
blazes  out  the  pathways  by  which  thought  may 
guide  its  following  footsteps.  By  its  aid  life  be- 
comes a  long  panorama  of  nature-sights  and  sounds, 
every  one  of  which  thought  must  analyse  and  un- 
derstand. We  may  sit  idly  and  drink  in  the  - 
uous  impressions,  Wit  in  so  doing  we  are  only  lag- 
gards on  the  way.  We  should  understand  the 
meaning,  from  its  ethical  aspect,  of  every  one  of 
these.  It  is  not  enough  to  classify  and  name,  to 
seek  for  external  differences  and  similarities;  the 
inner  meaning  of  it  all  must  be  sought  out.  Knowl- 
edge which  does  not  broaden  the  human  character 
and  make  it  more  humane  or  god-like  is  no  knowl- 
edge— its  acquirement  is  time  thrown  away.  But 
nature  is  infinitely  patient,  and  although  we  must 
get  our  lesson  before  this  earth  grows  old  and  dies, 


DESIRE-CONSCIOUSNESSS  13 

to  give  place  to  newer  and,  let  us  hope,  more  perfect 
ones,  still  the  interval  is  so  long  that  there  is  ample 
opportunity,  and  none  need  fail  because  of  lack  of 
this. 

Sense-consciousnes  is  probably  one  of  the  lowest 
and  most  humble  of  all  the  divine  differentiations 
within  the  sea  of  conscious  life,  for  it  is  certainly 
one  of  the  most  transient.  Yet,  nevertheless,  it  is 
an  absolutely  necessary  accessory  to  other  and 
higher  states,  so  that  it  will  not  do  to  pass  it  by 
too  quickly.  Let  us  rather  learn  its  lessons,  assist 
it  to  perform  its  duties,  lean  not  upon  its  transient 
pleasures  or  the  glimpse  of  life  which  it  affords,  but 
use  it  as  a  door  through  which  we  may  enter  the 
real  college  of  life — as  a  preparatory  department  in 
the  University  of  Being. 

DESIRE-CONSCIOUSNESS 

The  consciousness  of  Desire  is  the  natural  se- 
quence of  sensuous  perception.  When  one  sees  a 
beautiful  thing,  for  example,  he  desires  to  be  like  it 
—  to  be  the  same  as  it.  This  feeling  his  dimly 
awakened  reason  attempts  to  satisfy  by  the  posses- 
sion of  the  thing  physically.  It  is  the  craving  for 
unity;  the  groping  of  the  soul  painfully  and  blind- 
ly its  backward  way  across  the  abyss  of  differenti- 
ation over  which  it  has  passed.  Similarly  those 
desires  whose  office  is  to  perpetuate  life  are  at  first 
related  solely  to  that  center  of  universal  life  which 


14  THE   EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

the  man  feels  within  his  own  breast.  He  is  con- 
scious of  no  selfishness  in  desiring  to  live,  so  long 
as  he  has  not  separated  his  life  from  the  infinite 
Whole.  All  desire  is  at  its  source  pure  and  divine; 
it  is  differentiation  and  consequent  further  and 
further  separation  from  its  divine  Source  which 
permits  of  its  becoming  contaminated  and  tainted 
with  selfishness.  The  purely  divine  desire  to  live 
thus  becomes  dulled,  and  for  it  is  substituted  the 
desire  to  live  regardless  of  the  rights  of  others, 
and,  finally,  the  desire  to  live  at  the  expense  of 
others — the  rast  and  most  selfish  stage. 

Yet  a  man  does  not  necessarily  assoeiate  thought 
witli  any  of  his  desires.  Memory  and  anticipation 
play  a  far  more  important  part.  One  does  ik>: 
"I  think  that  I  want  this  thing."  hut,  k' I  want  it." 
Associated  with  thoughl  through  memory  and  im- 
agination, desire  speedily  falls  under  the  sway  of 
selfishness,  thus  acquiring  a  far  higher  potency; 
but  it  can  not  be  said  to  be  the  offspring  of  thought. 
The  desires  are  notoriously  strongest  where  reason 
and  its  concomitant,  will,  are  weakest.  When  we 
say  that  thought  precedes  desire,  we  often  mean 
only  that  memory  precedes  desire,  or  that  we  desire 
a  thing  because  memory,  through  the  association  o! 
ideas,  or  in  some  other  manner,  has  brought  the 
thing  before  our  minds. 

Desire  is  the  motive  for  action  on  the  part  of  all 
manifested  life.  Like  all  divine  forces  it  is  entirely 
impersonal  and  may  be  perverted  into  evil.     The 


^p\ 


SRSITY  j 

DESIRE-CONSCIOUSNESS  15 


devil  is  but  God  inverted,  as  the  old  saying  tells  us. 
In  its  highest  aspect  desire  is  but  another  name  for 
compassion,  for  what  is  compassion  but  the  desire 
to  aid  others?  All  the  faculties  of  the  lowliest, 
most  fallen  human  soul  have  their  roots  in  divinity 
—  are  but  perversions  through  ignorance  of  the  di- 
vinely beneficent  forces  of  nature.  Even  the  desires 
that  seem  —  and  are  —  most  selfish  are  but  the  ef- 
forts of  the  soul  to  gain  happiness  through  what 
seems  to  it  the  shortest  method,  and  are  due  ;n  the 
first  instance  entirely  to  ignorance.  Ignorance  of 
the  meaning  and  purport  of  life;  of  the  nature  and 
essential  divinity  of  the  soul;  of  the  universality  of 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect;  of  the  fact  of  the  re- 
peated return  of  the  soul  to  the  earth,  the  arena  of 
its  evolution  —  all  this  makes  a  sad  chaos  of  life. 
No  wonder  that  men  commit  the  most  horrible  of 
crimes  in  their  endeavor  to  reach  and  permanently 
possess  happiness.  Men  murder,  steal,  forge,  en- 
slave, form  corporations  and  trusts, — commit  all 
crimes — because  their  commission  seems  to  bring 
happiness  a  step  nearer.  Truly,  we  need  higher 
conceptions  of  both  life  and  happiness! 


CHAPTER    III 

THOUGHT    AND    IMAGINATION 

OPPOSITION  is  the  law  of  differentiation,  or 
rather,  the  means  by  which  differentiation 
is  accomplished.  No  force  can  be  exerted 
except  it  be  opposed  by  a  counter  force.  The  two 
may  he  disparate,  the  one  yield  to  and  be  replaced 
by  the  other,  but  opposition  of  some  degree  is  abso- 
lutely essential  to  the  exhibition  of  energy.  This 
being  so  —  and  its  truth  is  self-evident  —  it  follows 
that  the  manifestation  of  the  faculties  of  the  soul 
will  tend  to  duality;  there  will  be  in  each  enough 
differentiation  to  afford  the  necessary  basis  for  its 
activity.  It  may  undoubtedly  happen  that  one 
faculty  finds  the  necessary  opposing  fore 
times  in  other  faculties,  as  when  reason  opposes  de- 
sire. But  this  outer  opposition  is  not  essential. 
Each  faculty  will  be  found  to  fall  naturally  into 
two  great  divisions  which  oppose  each  other  suffi- 
ciently to  afford  the  necessary  energies  to  enable 
both  portions  to  manifest  and  develope.  Thought  is 
no  exception.  In  the  Kosmos  itself  Primordial 
Thought  divides  into  Absolute  Wisdom,  or  the 
knowledge  of  worlds  to  be,  and  Creative  Imagina- 
tion, or  the  power  to  clothe  those  Primal  Ideas  in 


THOUGHT  AND   IMAGINATION  17 

form.  In  the  microcosm,  or  man,  there  is  an  exact 
parallel.  Thought  naturally  divides  itself  into 
two  great  faculties — Reason  and  Imagination.  The 
latter  has  never  been  accorded  its  proper  place  in 
the  estimate  of  the  faculties  of  the  soul.  The  Sen- 
sational school  of  philosophers  deal  with  it,  strange 
to  say,  with  more  fairness  and  a  more  acute  per- 
ception of  its  importance  than  any  other  class. 
They  assign  it  creative  functions,  but  assert  that  it 
can  only  use  materials  which  have  reached  the 
mind  through  the  senses  —  whence,  in  truth,  they 
also  derive  all  the  faculties  of  the  soul.  They  admit 
that  the  forms  produced  by  the  imagination  are  new, 
but  not  the  material.  Still,  they  see  that  the  power 
to  take  even  old  material  and  work  it  up  into  some- 
thing quite  new  and  unlike  the  old,  is  unique,  and 
that,  therefore,  imagination,  while  employing  mem- 
ory as  its  agent  in  gathering  material,  is  much  more 
than  mere  memory. 

It  is,  indeed.  Few  realize  the  tremendous  power 
exercised  in  the  idlest  imaginings.  Dream,  for 
example,  is  a  state  where  reason  is  notoriously  in 
abeyance,  often  entirely  absent,  yet  even  the  most 
foolish  of  dreams  reproduce  landscapes,  persons, 
conversations,  and  so  on,  with  a  wealth  of  matter, 
and  an  accuracy  of  detail  which  is  marvelous  if 
philosophically  examined.  Memory  may,  and  does, 
furnish  much  of  the  material  for  these  idle  visions, 
but  this  is  simply  because  the  soul  is  delighted 
with  its  sensuous  existence,  or  with  portions  of  it, 


18  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

at  least,  and  deliberately  reconstructs  these  by  the 
magic  power  of  its  truly  creative  faculty.  If  it  be 
discontented  with  its  environments  of  any  kind. 
physical,  mental  or  moral,  it  will  quietly  discard  or 
reject  these,  and  construct  for  itself  others  brighter 
and  better  in  which  memory  has  little  or  no  part. 

This  universe  is  but  the  Imagination  of  God. 
Whatever  part  be  played  by  reason  in  its  begin- 
nings, imagination  is  the  mighty  agent  which 
carves  out  every  detail.  And  we  can  easily 
that  reason  such  as  we  know  could  well  be  absent 
from  a  process  supervised  by  Absolute  Wisdom. 
Imagination  is  the  genii  at  whose  touch  form  ap- 
pears. It  is  the  opposite  pole  of  thought,  for 
thought  and  imagination  are  but  the  positive  and 
fcive  aspects  of  one  and  the  same  thing. 
Thought  deals  with  externals;  imagination  with 
interior  things.  Of  course,  reason  also  deals  with 
internal  things,  as  does  also  imagination  with  ex- 
ternals, but  this  is  not  the  method  ordinarily  em- 
ployed. Imagination,  in  truth,  is  slowly  changing 
the  whole  earth,  and  especially  man  himself,  but 
molecular  matter  is  unwieldy  and  needs  a  more 
powerful  imagination  than  that  of  man  to  bring 
about  speedy  change. 

But  we  have  every  reason  for  supposing  that 
finer  states  of  matter  are  more  easily  affected.  In- 
deed, there  is  no  other  way  of  accounting  for  the 
forms  we  see  in  dreams  except  to  suppose  them  to 
have  actually  leaped  into  being,  "full  panoplied," 


THOUGHT  AND   IMAGINATION  19 

in  response  to  our  imagination,  and  to  De  con- 
structed out  of  matter  in  these  rarer  conditions. 
They  persist  only  so  long  as  our  feeble  wills  hold 
them  intact,  even  as  the  very  universes  will  per- 
sist just  so  long  as  the  mighty  Creative  Will  of 
their  Cosmocratores  holds  the  idea  of  them  clearly 
in  its  imagination,  when  they,  too,  will  fade  away 
like  the  vagaries  of  a  departing  dream.  The  "  writ- 
ten upon  the  tablets  of  the  brain"  theory  has  long 
since  been  abandoned  by  thoughtful  Sensational- 
ists, or  Materialists,  for  they  recognize  the  insuper- 
able mechanical  difficulties  which  beset  such  an  ex- 
planation. Idle  dreams  and  equally  idle  fancies  in 
waking  are  but  the  moods  of  a  childish  giant ;  they 
presage  the  power  which  will  be  exerted  when  the 
giant  realizes  his  strength  and  exerts  it  intelli- 
gently. 

Another  thing  to  be  remembered,  and  which  will 
have  a  most  important  bearing  upon  the  course  of 
our  future  argument,  is  that  the  imagination  is  the 
subjective  faculty  of  the  soul,  par  excellence.  Reason 
is  its  objective  faculty,  for  it  is  so  universally  exer- 
cised upon  external  phenomena  that  it  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  act  interiorily,  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
term.  But  with  imagination  it  is  different.  Its 
first  step  is  to  retire  within;  it  can  not  be  exer- 
cised while  the  mind  is  occupied  with  externals. 
For  it  no  exterior  universe  is  required,  except  to 
furnish  material  for  its  inner  activity.  In  sleeping 
or  waking,  in  night-dreaming  or  day,  the  external 


20  THE    EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

universe  is  unnecessary ;  it  creates  its  own  worlds, 
and  peoples  them  with  its  own  beloved,  utterly  in- 
different as  to  whether  external  universes  exist  or 
not. 

Reason  represents  the  working  phase  of  exis- 
tence; imagination  its  opposite,  or  rest,  and  both 
are  equally  necessary  to  a  happy  existence.  The 
law  of  cycles,  of  alternating  activity  and  restin 
seen  throughout  all  nature.  Ever  the  night  follows 
the  day;  ever  are  the  tired  faculties  of  activity  re- 
cuperated by  the  grateful  cessation  from  toil.  It  is 
a  law  of  life;  it  is  but  another  example  of  tli<»se 
"pairs  of  opposites"  by  which  manifestation  is 
accomplished,  and  through  which  existence  wends 
its  blissful  way.  There  will  never  be  that  total 
cessation  from  toil  which  Western  religions 
teach,  nor  is  there  warrant  for  this  in  all  nature. 
"Work,  then  rest,"  is  the  command  of  nature,  and 
it  has  been  recognized,  if  but  dimly,  by  every  peo- 
ple who  have  set  one  day  apart  as  sacred  from  toil. 

Imagination  is  a  most  perfect  means  of  resting 
(for  rest  in  its  true  sense  is  but  a  change  of  occupa- 
tion) inasmuch  as  it  is  above  all  limitations  of 
time.  When  one  retires  into  its  recesses  for  pi 
sure,  he  cares  not  whether  past,  present  or  future 
be  the  subject-matter  for  its  creations.  Naturally, 
the  young  choose  the  future;  equally  naturally 
the  old  prefer  to  live  in  the  past.  When  one  sits 
down  to  rest  in  the  fictions  of  today,  does  he  not 
enter  with  an  equal  zest  into  the  lives  and  loves  of 


THOUGHT   AND   IMAGINATION  21 

the  Antediluvians,  the  old  Greeks  and  Romans, 
the  ancient  Britons,  as  with  the  fates  of  those  of 
the  present?  One  rather  prefers,  if  there  be  any 
choice,  that  a  time  be  selected  by  the  novelist  which 
enables  him  to  complete  the  picture  presented,  thus 
leaving  no  element  of  happiness  to  the  uncertainty 
of  the  future.  For  uncertainty  is  the  minor  chord 
of  our  human  existence  both  actually  and  music- 
ally. The  real  difference  between  minor  and  major 
music  is  unexplainable  by  the  science  of  music 
alone.  But  psycho-physiology  comes  to  its  aid, 
and  shows  that  the  difference  consists  wholly  in 
the  sense  of  incompleteness  and  uncertainty  which 
(a uses  the  feeling  of  sadness,  and  that  this  is  due 
to  the  relation  of  the  key-tone  to  the  over-tones. 
In  major  music  this  is  evident,  and  both  har- 
mony and  melody  return  to  it  as  a  base  of  support 
clearly  denned  and  evident  to  the  most  untrained 
ear.  In  minor  music  this  relation  is  concealed  by 
the  position  of  the  key-note,  which  is  neither  prom- 
inent nor  dominant.  Therefore,  there  runs  through 
it  all  a  sense  of  incompleteness  and  uncertainty 
which  causes  the  soul  to  feel  that  melancholy  which 
must  always  attend  it  so  long  as  it  wanders  in  doubt 
and  uncertainty.  It  may  be,  and  is,  sweet  for  it 
is  buoyed  by  hope,  but  throughout'  is  the  wail  of 
Demeter  for  Persephone.  And  the  imagination  is 
not  bound  to  the  rock  of  reality,  as  is  reason. 
There  need  be  no  incompleteness  nor  uncertainty  to 
its  creations.      Throughout   the   days    of   life   one 


22  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

must  toil  with  imperfection  both  within  and  with- 
out; during  sleep  and  death  is  restored  the  perfect 
and  unconditioned,  else  would  the  heart  get  hard- 
ened and  the  hands  grow  weary 

Holding  tin-in  up  for  their  heritage. 

Excepting  moments  of  sensuous  enjoyment,  the 
only  rest  the  soul  knows  in  waking  life  is  found 
in  the  imagination.  It  constitutes  the  sole  rest  of 
the  child  who  has  not  learned  to  live  in  the  sen- 
suous  and  whose  happy  imaginings  are  but  tin 
disappearing  vestiges  of  its  blissful  life  beyond  the 
grave.  The  boy  soldier  gets  more  true  pleasure  in 
the  mock  drill  and  the  ragged  attempt  to  imitate  the 
uniform,  than  the  real  soldier  does  in  all  the  glory 
of  the  actual  battle.  The  child  is  yet  living  in  its 
imagination,  and  the  adult  turns  lovingly  to  the 
same  source  of  happiness  until  he  is  taught  by  a 
false  philosophy  of  life  to  seek  happiness  in  the 
fleeting  and  equally  unreal  pleasures  of  sensuous 
enjoyment. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THOUGHT,    REASON,     INTUITION,    INSTINCT,    AND     FEELING 

IF  we  now  examine  thought,  as  thus  analyzed, 
we  will  find  much  of  the  doubt  and  uncer- 
tainty which  surrounded  it  capable  of  ex- 
planation. In  its  dual  aspect,  as  we  have  seen, 
it  is  composed  of  reason  and  imagination,  these 
being  opposite  poles  of  one  and  the  same  faculty, 
and  each  necessary  to  the  activity  and  even  exist- 
ence of  the  other.  But  thought  is  capable  of  still 
further  analysis  because  of  the  fact  that  man  is 
not  identical  with,  nor  the  outcome  of,  the  molecu- 
lar  and  chemical  activities  going  on  within  his 
body,  as  our  Materialistic  philosophers  would  fain 
prove.  That  is  to  say,  its  effects  are  so  different, 
accordingly  as  it  occupies  itself  with  high  or  low 
ideas  or  images,  as  to  entitle  it  to  a  dual  classifi- 
cation, as  is  the  case  also  with  the  desires,  which 
are  beneficent  or  maleficent  accordingly  as  they 
are  directed  to  high  or  low  things. 

Again,  if  we  would  regard  the  mind  as  only  one 
of  many  faculties  of  the  soul,  and  the  brain-mind 
as  only  a  semi-material  organ,  just  as  the  eye  and 
ear  are  purely  material  organs,  much  of  the  per- 
plexity as  to  what  happens  to  the  soul  at   death 


24  THE   EVIDENCE   OF  IMMORTALITY 

would  be  relieved.  .lust  as  the  eye,  ear,  and  so  on, 
are  organs  which  relate  the  soul  to  molecular  vibra- 
tions upon  this,  the  molecular,  plane,  so  the  brain- 
mind  is  hut  a  superior  kind  of  organ  to  enable  the 
son]  to  synthesize  all  the  various  reports  conv< 
to  it  by  the  senses,  and  to  reason  out  the  relation 
which  one  hears  to  another.  We  over-estimate  its 
importance,  and  imagine  that  the  brain-mind  is 
our  very  lift-  h» -cause  its  bombardment  by  the 
senses  is  so  incessant,  and  its  response  thereto  so 
prompt  It  is  as  though  one  were  to  assume  the 
superintendence  of  a  vast,  rapidly  revolving  ma- 
chine which  demanded  his  entire  attention.  He 
would  have  to  merge  hi-  Consciousness  entirely  in 
the  work  which  it  did,  and  for  him,  while  so  in- 
tently occupied,  the  rest  of  the  world  would  be 
non-existent.  Now,  sight  alone  bombards  the 
senses  with  many  trillions  of  vibrations  per  Bee 
for  the  violet  ray  alone,  while  if  we  include  the 
whole  spectrum,  whose  united  effect  is  light,  the 
number  of  vibrations  exceeds  all  comprehension. 

Add  to  this,  that  all  these  vibrations   reveal   to  the 
delighted    soul    an    ever-changing    panorama      of 
beauty  —  an  almost  infinite  Aladdin's  Palace- 
it  is  easy  to  perceive  that  it  can    nut    hut   be  over- 
whelmed   by    the    senses,    and    entirely  over-esti- 
mate   the    importance    of    sensuous     life.       8 
BUOUS  life  consists  almost  wholly  of  thoughts  and 
images  aroused  by  the  senses,  and  gloated   ov< 
to  speak,  by  the  brain-mind  without  even  an   at- 


REASON   AND   INSTINCT  25 

tempt  being  made  to  properly  exercise  the  reason- 
ing power  of  the  soul  upon  them.  The  Sensualists 
are  not  wholly  un philosophical,  but  they  mistake 
the  part  for  the  whole. 

As  we  retreat  inward  we  may,  perhaps,  reach  a 
point  where  reason  and  imagination,  as  we  know 
them,  are  one.  We  can  well  fancy  creative  imag- 
ination  and  divine  intelligence,  or  reason,  to  be 
united  id  unmanifested  deity.  But  in  man  they 
arc  in  manifestation,  and  therefore  opposed.  For 
without  opposition  there  can  be  no  manifestation, 
as  we  have  seen.  They  relieve  one  another,  so  to 
say,  in  the  eternal  cycle  of  life.  When  the  one  is 
most  active  the  other  is  in  abeyance.  Both  afford 
the  very  highest  states  of  bliss.  But  reason  offers 
no  higher  happiness  than  the  imagination.  Cre- 
ativc  imagination  even  when  dulled  and  materi- 
alized brings  a  happiness,  as  in  the  case  of  the  poet 
OX  ]>ainter,  which  is  akin  to  ecstacy.  What  must  it 
be,  then,  when  one  has  but  to  will,  and  see  his 
images  spring  forth  in  all  the  glorious  beauty  of  a 
primal  birth  ? 

Reason,  indeed,  might  be  said  to  mar  the  highest 
1)1  iss,  even  as  would  the  conscious  exercise  of  the 
imagination.  There  must  be  no  sense  of  effort  in 
our  happiness,  or  the  soul  will  sooner  or  later  tire. 

Reason  passes  without  any  perceptible  break  into 
instinct,  below,  and  intuition,  above.  Studied  by 
the  light  of  these  relations,  its  function  and  office 
in  the  economy  of  the  soul  become  still  more  ap- 


26  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

parent.  Both  instinct  and  intuition  are  relatively 
much  nearer  the  divine  than  is  reason  ;  each  fuses 
into  and  becomes  indistinguishable  from  the  other 
under  certain  conditions.  Instinct  is  intelligent 
change  of  relations,  unaccompanied  by  self-con- 
sciousness, or  the  intervention  of  reason,  and  reaches 
down  into  atomic  and  molecular  activities, upon  the 
one  hand,  and  upward  into  the  semi-self-conscions 
response  to  necessities  of  environment,  upon  the 
other.  Intuition  is  more  difficult  to  describe  be- 
cause it  transcends  the  present  normal  state  of  con- 
sciousness for  man  ;  yet  it  represents  the  same  cer- 
tainty of  knowing,  without  the  possibility  of  err- 
ing or  the  necessity  of  reasoning,  upon  mental 
planes,  that  instinct  displays  in  action  among  ma- 
terial environments. 

As  said,  reason  merges  into  intuition  above,  and 
into  instinct  below,  as  it  must  do  if  const  ion- 
be  unity  in  source  and  essence.  In  its  own  domain 
proper,  reason  is  but  the  process  of  comparison  be- 
tween things,  with  conclusions  drawn  therefrom. 
It  is  said  to  be  the  crown  of  man;  it  is  rather  the 
collar  of  the  serf.  It  is  the  sign  of  imperfection; 
the  acknowledgment  of  ignorance.  It  is  the  grop- 
ing oi  a  Mind  Sampson  among  the  pillars  of  a  ma- 
terial prison,  and  is  often  as  destructive  when  it 
puts  forth  its  strength.  Except  the  real  nature  and 
ee 94  nee  of  the  things  which  it  compares  be  known, 
its  deductions  must  often,  perhaps  always,  err. 

The   presence   of   reason   in  the   universe  would 


REASON   AND   INSTINCT  27 

seem  to  indicate  that  the  Absolute  itself  is  capable 
of  change ;  of  having  the  sum  of  its  conscious  ex- 
periences added  to,  and  a  widening  of  its  conscious 
area  in  consequence.  For  if  the  universe  exists  by- 
virtue  of  the  Absolute,  then  either  man,  with  his 
experiences  of  hopes  and  fears,  his  sufferings  and 
bliss,  is  a  part  of  and  due  to  the  action  of  this  Ab- 
solute, or  he  is  apart  from  it,  and  but  an  evanes- 
cent will-o'-the-wisp,  resulting  from  chance  com- 
binations in  the  elements  out  of  which  nature  con- 
structs her  eternal  verities.  But  man  can  unques- 
tionably uncover  depths  in  his  own  consciousness 
which  link  him  to  and  make  him  an  essential  fac- 
tor in,  the  cosmos  in  which  he  apparently  awakens 
to  being ;  therefore,  within  him  is  acting  an  actual 
portion  of  the  Absolute;  and  as  he  is  continuously 
undergoing  new  conscious  experiences,  the  Absolute 
is  also  doing  this  by  means  of  him,  its  representa- 
tive and  agent.  The  infinite  unity  of  the  Ab- 
solute can  only  manifest  itself  finitely  by  means  of 
an  infinite  succession  of  finite  phenomena;  so  that 
unless  nature  be  postulated  as  a  weary  treadmill 
where  the  same  experiences  are,  after  ages  have 
cycled  by,  gone  through  with  again,  there  must  be 
recognized  the  possibility  of  an  infinite  number  of 
new  experiences.  Mathematics  hints  at  the  same 
thing  in  demonstrating  that  an  infinite  number  of 
atoms  require  infinite  time  for  their  infinite  permu- 
tations. 

Self-consciousness  accompanies  and  distinguishes 


28  THE    EVIDENCE  OF   IMMORTALITY 

reason.  For  illusion  is  the  producer  of  self-con- 
sciousness, and  within  its  grasp  the  soul  must 
grope.  Reason  represents  consciousness  so  blinded 
by  matter  that  it  believes  itself  separate  from  the 
great  Whole;  upon  which  erroneous  conception  the 
entire  structure  of  personal  self-consciousness  is 
reared.  Failing  to  recognize  that  the  Self  is  the 
same  in  all,  but  perceiving  its  glimmer  among  the 
clouds  of  its  material  encasement,  it  proceeds  to 
erect  an  impassable,  if  wholly  imaginary,  barrier 
between  that  light  of  consciousness  within  itself 
and  the  same  light  illumining  the  (to  it)  outer 
mos.  This  basic  error  well  illustrates  its  nature 
and  its  province.  It  is  the  servant  of  pure  con- 
sciousness ;  the  hardy  and  fearless  explorer  oi  those 
unknown  abysses,  those  dreamed-of  but  unattained 
powers  which  must  continually  arise  in  the  infinite 
changes  of  an  illimitable,  resistlessly  pr< 
Universe.  It  is  the  pioneer :  the  explorer;  and  sfl 
heedless  of  peril  as  pioneers  ought  to  be.  It  blazes 
out  the  rude  path  which  intuition  transforms  into 
the  broad  highway.  Wit li  infinite  patience  it 
changes  chaos  into  cosmos,  and  is  rewarded  by  be- 
ing itself  transformed  into  intuition  in  the  process. 

So  that  reason  represents  divine  conscious 
struggling  with  that  infinitely  new  succession  of 
phenomena  which  the  manifestation  of  changing 
universes  implies  and  necessitates.  Dealing  with 
the  eternally  new  and  unfamiliar,  it  is  for  this 
reason    uninformed   and  fallible;   it  ought    there- 


REASON   AND   INSTINCT  29 

fore,  to  be  cautious.  It  is  divine  in  that  it  rep- 
resents the  divine  potentiality  of  consciousness  in 
grappling  with    and  mastering   new   problems. 

Instinct  is  creative  imagination  impressed  upon 
plastic,  obedient,  unreasoning  substance;  therefore, 
the  latter  plays  its  part  blindly  and  well.  Yet,  as 
this  impress  is  also  an  emanation,  reason  is  bound 
to  be  born  from  the  seed  so  implanted,  and  it  ap- 
pears as  feeble,  yet  as  full  of  promise,  as  a  child. 
Its  first  concepts  are  as  those  of  a  child ;  it  makes 
mistakes,  commits  errors,  falls  under  the  sway  of 
illusion,  but,  because  of  its  oneness  in  essence,  it 
finally  wins  its  way  back  to  its  divine  Source ;  its 
new  experiences,  ripened  into  intuition,  are  added 
to  the  stores  of  Absolute  Wisdom. 

Reason,  therefore,  must  be  assigned  its  proper 
value  in  the  study  of  consciousness.  It  is  not  the 
supreme  and  only  arbiter,  as  modern  thought  would 
teach.  This  function  has  been  assigned  it  through 
the  glamour  of  its  own  illusions.  It  is  invaluable 
as  a  servant;  it  is  but  a  blind  master.  While 
groping  in  the  bonds  of  matter,  man  must  perforce 
trust  it;  but  he  should  know  its  weakness,  recog- 
nize that  its  conclusions  are  finite,  founded  upon 
imperfect  knowledge,  and  liable  to  be  set  aside  at 
any  time  by  larger  experience.  And  he  ought  ever 
to  seek  for  the  light  of  intuition  which  glows  within 
his  heart,  and  foster,  encourage,  and  wholly  trust 
it,  for  it  is  the  lord,  and  reason  but  its  humble 
il.     Then  slowly  the  recognition  of  the  divine 


30  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

man  within  will  dawn;  his  divine  powers  will  be- 
gin to  function;  and  reason,  controlled  and  di- 
rected, will  prove  of  a  thousandfold  more  service 
than  when  it  ignorantly  claims  the  throne  of  the 
true  man. 

Yet  reason  will  always  be.  There  must  ever 
arise  new  conditions,  new  states  of  conscious  1 
for  the  great  heart  of  nature  can  not  cease  to  beat, 
nor  the  universes  die.  And  with  these,  as  we  have 
seen,  it  must  always  be  its  province  to  grapple;  so 
that  before  it  is  the  priceless  promise  of  endless 
employment;  a  future  which  can  never  weary  nor 
grow  commonplace. 

Intuition  again,  is  usually  described  as  that   fac- 
ulty of  the  soul  by  means  of  which  it  cognizes  truth 
directly.     Yet  while  the  soul  undoubtedly  poss. 
this  faculty  by  virtue  of  its  divine  origin,  it  is  only 
as  a  potentiality  until  further  developed  by  its 
pension  through  conscious  experience.     Intuition  is 
Stored  knowledge,  the   memory   of  which  the  s<>ul 
can  draw  upon;   it  is  also  the  perfection  of  reason- 
ing processes  which  go  in  a  flash  from  the  known  to 
the  unknown;  it  is  the  ideation  of  the  Higher 
—  the  Divine  Soul  which  informs  body  after  body, 
and  which  is  untouched  by  either  birth  or  death. 
For   intuition   is    utterly    inexplicable    except    by 
the  light  of  reincarnation.     Admitting — which  is 
but  the  truth  —  that  the  soul  lives  life  after  life,  re- 
taining the  aroma,  so  to  say,  of  its  conscious 
periences,  then  intuition  is  seen  to  be  but  the  con- 


REASON   AND    INSTINCT  31 

servation  of  consciousness — the  expansion,  through 
infinite  conscious  experience  of  the  finite  I  am  I 
into  the  infinite  I  AM ! 

Instinct  is  its  counterpart  in  the  animal  king- 
dom, but  here  the  conservation  would  seem  to  be 
hierarchal  —  as,  indeed,  it  may  be  in  man,  in  some 
great  Oversoul,  which  we  can  dimly  sense,  but  can 
not  yet  clearly  perceive.  Instinct  seems  to  be 
hierarchal  because  each  member  of  any  particular 
family  possesses  all  the  conscious  power  that  any 
other  individual  has.  One  bird  builds  its  nest  just 
as  perfectly  as  another  of  the  same  species, 
with  only  the  slightest  of  divergings.  Imper- 
ceptible as  are  these  differences,  they  are  yet  in 
this  kingdom  the  point  of  unstable  equilibrium, 
where  the  ascent  of  life  is  actually  taking  place, 
and  constitute  the  only  mark  by  which  we  are  sure 
that  instinct  is  not  a  fixed  quantity  and,  therefore, 
evolution  not  a  dream,  and  the  Cycle  of  Necessity 
a  bible  and  an  illusion.  So,  intuition  also  marks 
the  point  of  unstable  equilibrium  for  the  soul  —  the 
conserved  faculties  of  the  divine  man,  the  Ishvara 
who  "dwells  in  every  human  heart."  It  is  admit- 
tedly greater  in  some  than  in  others ;  in  many  it 
seems  entirely  absent,  while  not  a  few  men  show 
very  clear  traces  of  being  still  under  the  dom- 
inance of  instinct — at  such  infinitely  varying 
stages  of  evolution  have  the  different  members 
of  the  human  race  arrived  ! 

Of  the  faculty  of  feeling  little  can  be  said.     Feel- 


32  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

ing  is  consciousness;  to  analyze  it  is  to  explain 
the  mystery  of  life,  to  answer  the  riddle  of  the 
Sphynx.  It  is  the  synthesis  of  all  the  various  fac- 
ulties of  the  soul.  All  alike  root  in  it  at  their  last 
analysis.  The  consciousness  of  life  is  a  feeling  at 
its  base;  the  consciousness  that  we  are  alive,  or 
self-consciousness,  is  no  less  a  feeling.  To  feel  is 
to  know,  to  be  conscious. 

Yet  as  the  faculties  of  man  run  the  entire  gamut, 
from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  and  most  divine,  so 
do  the  feelings  naturally  divide  into  those  of  the 
lower  and  those  of  the  higher  man.  The  former 
we  speak  of  as  rt  emotions,"  although  the  latter  are 
often,  but  wrongly,  included  in  tins  designation. 
Properly  ■peaking,  the  emotions  are  those  which 
appertain  strictly  to  sensuous  experiences,  while 
the  truer,  deeper  feelings,  such  as  pity,  —ion, 

love,  hope,  and  so  on,  belong  to  the  higher  nature 
entirely.  Not  but  that  these  may  be  evolved  — 
perhaps  liberated  would  be  a  better  worcf — by 
and  through  sensuous  experiences,  for  sensuous  ex- 
perience is  the  schoolhouse  of  the  soul,  but  being 
once  evolved  they  are  naturally  conserved  by  the 
real,  and  not  by  the  transient,  man.  \W 
indeed,  the  germs  of  compassion  —  not  to  be  con- 
fused with  the  animal  maternal  instinct — in  many 
animals,  but  this  only  shows  the  common  base  of 
all  consciousness,  the  unity  of  life  on  all  planes. 

The  opposite  of  feeling  is,  of  course,  matter, 
feeling  being  only  a  synonym  for  consciousness,  or 


REASON   AND   INSTINCT  33 

spirit.  Yet  matter  is  only  embodied  entities 
whose  consciousness  is  so  different  from  our  own 
that  to  us  it  seems  non-consciousness,  so  that  spirit 
and  matter  again  are  shown  to  be  only  opposite 
poles  of  the  same  thing.  Certainly,  in  the  deeper 
feelings,  we  are  in  the  land  of  divinity,  and  far  be- 
yond our  ability  to  analyze.  We  may  not  ques- 
tion; we  can  only  accept  and  bow  before  the 
mighty  mystery  of  life. 


CHAPTER    V 
EFFECT  OF  DEATH    UPON  THE   CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  LIFE 

HAVING  briefly  studied  the  nature  of  the 
chief  faculties  of  the  soul,  it  remains  to 
examine  by  the  light  of  reason  and  logic 
the  effect  upon  them  of  the  death  of  the  phynnl 
body. 

At  the  very  outset,  the  query  meets  us :  Is  con- 
sciousness annihilated  absolutely  by  death,  or  does 
some  portion  of  it  escape  this  fate?  And,  if  so, 
what  portion? 

Consciousness  implies  a  cognizer,  the  thing  cog- 
nized, and  the  act  of  consciousness  itself.  That 
which  is  conscious  of  life,  in  the  case  of  primal, 
basic,  life-consciousness,  may  be  termed  the  first 
Manifested  Logos,  or  Infinite  Unity,  which,  being 
infinite,  is  certainly  capable  of  manifesting  itself  in 
an  infinite  number  of  centers  of  consciousness,  upon 
an  infinite  number  of  planes  of  consciousness  and 
during  an  infinite  succession  of  units  of  time.  The 
thing  of  which  it  is  conscious  is  motion — Infinite, 
Absolute,  Motion — which  is  the  material  aspect  of 
Itself.  The  act  of  consciousness  is  that  Infinite 
Volition  by  which  it  eternally  cognizes  its  own 
Being. 


DEATH   AND   LIFE-CONSCIOUSNESS  35 

Motion  is  the  material  manifestation  of  life; 
recognition  of  that  motion,  the  spiritual  manifesta- 
tion, or  conscious  aspect  of  life.  A  body  in  which 
motion  ceases  as  a  whole  is  dead  as  an  inde- 
pendent body,  although  its  constituent  parts  may 
be  in  violent  motion.  Thus  we  say  the  moon  is 
dead  because  it  has  ceased  to  exhibit  the  two 
forma  of  motion  by  means  of  which  we  recognize 
planetary  life  —  independent  motion  about  its  own 
axis,  and  independent  orbital  motion  about  the 
sim.  Especially  is  the  revolution  upon  its  own 
axis  evidence  of  volition  in  a  planetary  body,  for 
it  is  a  motion  which  astronomers  have  exhausted 
all  possible  theories  in  a  vain  attempt  to  explain. 
However  satisfactorily  their  celestial  mechanics  may 
account  for  other  motions,  in  the  face  of  axial  revo- 
lution they  break  hopelessly  down.  The  moon,  it 
is  true,  has  an  axial  motion  of  twenty-eight  days, 
but  this  is  due  to  the  attraction  of  the  earth  alone, 
and  is  in  no  sense  volitional.  For  moons,  earths, 
and  suns  revolve  upon  their  own  axes  because  they 
will*  to  do  so — a  fact  which  astronomy  will  be 
driven  to  accept  ere  long. 

Absence  of  all  motion  is  not  only  impossible, 
but  inconceivable.  A  meaningless,  senseless  mo- 
tion is  unthinkable  in  an  orderly  cosmos.  The 
effect  can   not    be    greater    than    the  cause,    and 


*  That  is.  their  Reeents  will  to  do  this.  The  material  molecules  of 
their  bodies  no  more  will  to  act  than  do  those  of  the  body  of  man. 
In  both  eases  it  is  the  Regent,  or  soul. 


36  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

if  we  find  order  and  plan  at  the  periphery  of  being, 
we  may  be  assured  it  exists  at  its  center.  There- 
fore, Absolute  Motion  is  both  planned  and 
nized  by  Absolute  Wisdom,  or  Absolute  Conscious- 
ness, and  for  this  reason,  the  consciousness  of  life 
is  infinite  in  both  space  and  time. 

The  consciousness  of  life,  then,  pervades  all  space. 
It  is  the  base,  apparently,  upon  which  all  other 
states  of  consciousness  rest,  the  source  from  which 
they  spring.  It  is  as  incapable  of  annihilation  as 
space  itself.  It  is  even  independent  of  form,  for  it 
can  equally  well  exist  in  the  Formless.  Therefore, 
death  or  the  destruction  of  form  can  not  de- 
stroy or  annihilate  the  consciousness  of  life,  or  of 
being.  But  with  this  consciousness  of  existence  in 
the  human  soul,  is  associated  the  added  conse; 
ness  that  I  exist — I,  a  particular  individual,  a 
self-cognizing  entity.  Is  this  individualized  con- 
sciousness annihilated  at  death  ? 

This  I-am-myself  consciousness  does  seem  to  de- 
pend upon  form.     It  is  a  differentiation  which  has 
arisen  within   the  universe  of  life,   and   is  a 
which    must    be    recognized   and   explained — not 
hi  inked. 

The  I,  or  ego-consciousness,  roots  in  the  very  Ab- 
solute itself.  It  is  primal ;  it  precedes  and  deter- 
mines all  subsequent  evolution.  From  I-centers 
of  consciousness  must  proceed  that  Infinite  Ideation 
whose  wisdom  results  in  cosmos.  To  such  I- 
centers  must  run  all  the  reports,  so  to  speak,  of  the 


DEATH   AND   LIFE-CONSCIOUSNESS  37 

cosmic  senses.  It  is  possible,  as  we  have  seen,  for 
the  Absolute  to  manifest  itself  as  an  I  at  any 
point  in  space  or  time — a  confused  comprehension 
of  which  lies  at  the  base  of  the  Deism  of  Hegel. 
From  these  primal  I-centers  spring  the  I-am- 
myself — a  reflected  state  of  consciousness  caused 
by  embodiment  in  material  forms.  This  manifes- 
tation of  Divinity  as  a  human  soul,  or  self-recog- 
nizing center  of  consciousness,  is  the  most  wonder- 
ful of  all  the  dark  mysteries  of  Being. 

For  in  the  human  soul  consciousness  separates 
itself  from  the  universe  of  which  it  is  a  portion,  and 
then  proceeds  to  study  and  analyse  that  other  por- 
tion which  is  really  itself,  but  from  which  it  is  ap- 
parently divided.  But  to  separate  itself,  even  ap- 
parently, requires  a  material  basis,  as  the  Secret 
Doctrine  points  out,  and  any  thing  material  must 
have  form,  though  this  be  but  that  Primeval  Chaos 
of  which  all  olden  philosophies  speak.  So  that 
Form  becomes  a  sine  qua  non  of  all  soul  manifesta- 
tion. 

It  will  be  evident  upon  a  moment's  examination 
that  this  I-am-I  which  is  at  the  base  of  the  human 
soul  does  not  depend  for  its  existence  upon  the  an- 
imal form  of  its  body,  however  strange  this  asser- 
tion may  seem  to  Western  ears.  But  if  it  did,  then 
would  the  sense  of  I-am-ness  change  with  the 
changing  body,  which  is  never  for  any  two  consecu- 
tive moments  precisely  the  same.  The  most  radi- 
cal  and  complete  changes,  as  between  the  infant 


38  THE   EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

and  the  old  man,  are  all  accompanied  by  the  same 
sense  of  I-am-myself.  One  may  feel  that  that  self 
has  had  many  experiences;  that  its  opinions  and 
beliefs  have  undergone  many  changes,  but  the 
inner  feeling  that  I  am  experiencing  this,  or  chang- 
ing my  views  into  these  or  those,  is  always  the 
same.  From  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  throughout 
infancy,  childhood,  adult  life,  and  old  age,  the  I 
has  remained  untouched  by  all  the  panorama 
which  has  passed  before  it.  Character  may  change 
—  it  is  the  object  of  the  ages  and  of  evolution  to 
change  it — but  that  which  recognises  itself  as  I 
never  changes.  The  form  which  reflects  the  cosmic 
I  am,  and  causes  the  feeling  of  ego-hood  in  the  hu- 
man soul,  is  not  that  of  its  animal  body,  of  this  we 
may  be  assured.  It  is  permanent  ;  it  is,  perhaps, 
the  noumenon  of  form,  and  capable  of  manifesting 
in  any  form,  whatsoever. 

But  the  soul,  or  I-am-myself,  does  depend  upon 
its  physical  form  for  bringing  it  into  relationship 
with  this  molecular  plane,  which  is  done  through 
and  by  means  of  the  senses.  Without  physical  or- 
gans for  receiving  and  transmitting  vibrations  the 
physical  universe  would  be  non-existent  for  it.  It 
sits  within,  occupying  a  plane  of  the  universe  more 
stable  than  this  molecular  one,  and  receives  the 
reports  of  the  senses,  almost  exactly  as  a  telegraph 
operator  might  receive  reports  of  the  doings  of  dis- 
tant cities.  It  is  evident  that  if  the  wires  were  cut 
the  operator  would  be  unable  to  communicate  with 


DEATH   AND   LIFE-CONSCIOUSNESS  39 

those  distant  places,  and  it  is  also  true  that  death 
must  cut  off  all  communication  with  this  molecular 
plane,  for  the  nerve-wires  are  completely  destroyed 
by  death. 

This  is  the  first  and  most  important  of  the  truths 
to  learn  from  the  death  of  the  body  —  that  it  separ- 
ates the  soul  effectually  from  this  molecular  world. 
It  will  throw  a  broad  and  bright  light  upon  all  so- 
called  communications  with  the  dead.  It  is  possi- 
ble to  reach  the  dead,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing, 
for  the  dead  to  communicate  with  us,  but  it  is  the 
rare  exception,  and  not  the  rule.  A  number  of 
abnormal  or  unusual  conditions  must  exist,  which 
will  be  studied  when  dealing  with  this  subject, 
in  another  chapter.  It  is  enough  for  our  present 
purpose  to  point  out  that  the  physical  senses  re- 
quire physical  peripheral  cells  to  receive  the  im- 
pact of  the  vibrations  coming  from  our  physical 
universe,  physical  nerves  and  nerve  fluids  to  con- 
vey these  vibrations  to  the  sense-centers,  and  physi- 
cal cells  to  receive,  record  and  preserve  them  until 
the  inner  ego  can  take  cognizance  of  them.  Death 
completely  breaks  this  necessary  sequence,  and 
even  sleep  does  so  temporarily.  Indeed,  the  latest, 
and  probably  correct,  theory  of  the  modus  operan- 
dum  of  sleep  supposes  the  actual  physical  inter- 
ruption of  this  sequence  by  the  separating,  or 
mutual  withdrawing,  of  the  central  nerve  cells 
which  are  in  contact  when  the  ego  is  awake. 

Sleep  is  the  exact  counterpart  of  death  in  that  it 


40  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

cuts  off  the  soul  from  communication  with  the  ex- 
ternal universe.  To  all  intents  and  purposes,  a 
man  asleep  is  a  man  dead,  the  sole  difference  being 
in  the  power  that  the  living  man  has  to  awaken. 
Let  the  sleep  be  profound  enough,  and  the  dulled 
senses  convey  no  reports  whatsoever  to  the  sleeper. 
"Seeing,  and  hearing  and  feeling  are  done,"  for  him 
who  slumbers,  until  he  again  awakens.  Sleep  has 
been  too  little  studied ;  within  its  blank  lapses  of 
consciousness  may  be  found  the  most  instructive 
and  helpful  analogies  with  death,  did  we  but  exam- 
ine them  in  the  proper  spirit.  For  in  sleep  the 
body  is  exhausted  temporarily;  in  death  it  is  out- 
worn altogether.  The  soul  rests  its  body  ten- 
thousand  times,  but  at  last  must  lay  it  aside  en- 
tirely, so  that  death  is  but  a  longer,  more  profound 
sleep.  One  is  dead  when  asleep,  and  but  asleep 
when  dead. 

Similarly,  trance,  unconsciousness  from  concus- 
sion, fainting,  etc.,  all  throw  the  light  of  analogy 
upon  their  great  congener,  death.  The  writer  once 
questioned  a  particularly  intelligent  young  man, 
dying  from  traumatic  peritonitis,  and  in  full  pos- 
session of  all  his  faculties,  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
sensation  of  dying.  u  I  feel  exactly  as  if  I  were  go- 
in  g  to  faint,"  was  the  reply.  And  presently  he  did 
faint — into  a  swoon  that  will  last  him  a  thousand 
years,  it  may  be.  Had  he  awakened,  by  any 
chance,  in  his  old  body,  he  would  have  picked  up 
from  the  record  upon  the  brain  cell  the  thread  of 


DEATH   AND   LIFE-CONSCIOUSNESS  41 

this  life,  and  gone  on ;  when  he  awakens  in  a  new 
one,  he  will  have  to  renew  all  his  associations  with 
this  molecular  universe,  and  again  go  through  the 
slow  process  of  building  for  himself  a  habitation. 
However  complete  and  unbroken  may  be  the  web 
of  life  upon  deeper  planes  in  which  the  soul  has  its 
true  home,  the  interregnum  between  earth  lives  is 
as  real  as  a  chasm  between  precipices,  and  can  only 
be  bridged  by  uniting  the  consciousness  and  mem- 
ory of  the  soul  while  in  the  body  to  that  inner 
thread  upon  which  all  its  molecular  and  transient 
personalities  are  strung. 

For  the  body  is  not  the  home  of  the  soul,  how- 
ever much  it  may  appear  to  be.  It  is  a  continual 
struggle  for  it  to  maintain  itself  here,  and  the 
slightest  break  in  the  channels  by  means  of  which 
it  reaches  the  earth  is  sufficient  to  annul  all  con- 
sciousness of  earth-life  and  its  concerns.  Fatigue 
wearies  the  delicate  wires  daily,  and  the  soul 
is  compelled  to  relax  its  hold  and  to  abandon,  if 
but  temporarily,  its  communication  with  earth. 
Sleep  the  brain  must,  or  madness  and  death  will 
quickly  follow.  Disease,  accident — ten  thousand 
things — surround  the  soul's  avenues  to  this  molec- 
ular universe,  and  all  seeking  to  exclude  it  from 
this,  to  it,  abnormal  consciousness,  either  tempo- 
rarily, by  sleep,  delirium,  or  trance,  or  to  destroy 
these  approaches  permanently  by  death. 

So  that  there  can  be  nothing  in  the  casting  off  of 
the  physical  body  to  warrant  the  apprehension  that 


42  THE   EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

the  I-am-myself  consciousness  will  not  survive  the 
process.  If  it  be,  as  it  unquestionably  is,  independ- 
ent of  all  change  in  the  body;  if  it  is  unaltered  by 
growth  or  age;  if  it  remain  the  same  when  paralysis 
removes  all  knowledge  or  sensation  of  almost  the 
whole  of  its  habitation;  if  it  survive  the  inter- 
regnums of  sleep,  delirium,  trance  or  madness,  dur- 
ing which  the  body  is  for  it,  at  least  temporarily, 
annihilated,  then  there  can  be  no  reason  for  alleg- 
ing that  death  destroys  or  even  changes  this  primal, 
individualising  and  permanent  consciousne^ 
I  AM  MYSELF! 


CHAPTER    VI 

EFFECT  OF   DEATH    UPON   THE   SENSES 

THE  sense-organs  are  in  the  material  body  ;  no 
one  will  dispute  this  fact.  Indeed,  the  body 
is  but  a  congeries  of  sense-organs,  together 
with  the  various  accessory  systems  for  maintaining 
these  in  a  serviceable  condition,  for  receiving  their 
reports,  for  locomotion,  reproduction  of  other 
bodies,  etc.  Death  unquestionably  destroys  these 
organs,  and  so  cuts  off  all  the  avenues  by  which 
the  vibrations  of  this  molecular  plane  of  the  uni- 
verse reach  the  soul.  There  can  be  no  seeing,  hear- 
ing, tasting,  touching,  or  smelling  of  molecular 
things  after  the  death  of  the  body.  And,  indeed, 
unless  we  assume  a  sensuous  state  of  existence  be- 
yond the  grave,  such  as  the  Christian  heaven  or  the 
Moslem  paradise,  there  is  no  further  use  for  these. 
The  senses  are  indubitably  differentiations  of  a  di- 
vine sense-consciousness,  which  is  one  of  the  native 
faculties  of  the  soul.  They  enable  the  soul  to 
perceive  and  examine  any  exterior  plane.  The  dif- 
ferent methods  by  which  matter  may  be  approached 
and  its  various  qualities  and  properties  recognized, 
cause  the  differentiations  of  the  one  sense-conscious- 
ness into  the  so-called  different  senses. 


44  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

These  have  been  differentiated  upon  the  molecu- 
lar plane  to  meet  its  necessities.  When  the  soul  in 
its  journey  through  the  great  Cycle  of  Necessity, 
finds  itself  face  to  face  with  any  new  plane  of  mat- 
ter, it  must  and  will  meet  the  new  conditions  by 
constructing  new  sense-organs.  It  is  said  that  the 
astral  plane  lies  next  in  our  pathway,  and  that  we 
are  already  beginning  to  develope  the  necer- 
senses  to  enable  the  soul  to  contact  it,  and  that  this 
is  the  secret  of  the  abnormal  powers  of  mediums 
and  psychics.  Whether  this  be  true  or  not,  matters 
little  to  our  present  enquiry;  the  sense  organs  which 
we  have  evolved,  and  which  we  are  beginning  (very 
imperfectly)  to  use,  are  unquestionably  destroyed 
by  death,  and  with  them  all  possibility  of  sensuous 
perception  of  the  molecular  earth.  This  is  the  all- 
important  fact  for  our  purpose.  We  are  not  even 
concerned  as  to  whether  or  not  disembodied  souls 
can  use  the  remnants  of  their  physical  sense-organs, 
or  embryotic  astral  ones,  for  bringing  them  into 
m -nsuous  contact  with  the  astral  plane;  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  know  that  the  physical  organs  are  de- 
stroyed, and  that  with  their  destruction  all  power 
of  sensuous  contact  with  the  earth  is  gone. 
Whether  or  not  other  methods  of  communication 
are  available  will  be  discussed  in  its  proper  place. 

Centers  of  sensation  certainly  exist  in  an  inte- 
rior and  comparatively  permanent  vesture  of  the 
soul  after  the  destruction  of  the  body,  but  they  are 
as  useless  for  sensuous  perception  of  the  earth  as 


DEATH   AND  THE   SENSES  45 

telegraph  stations  whose  wires  have  been  cut,  are 
for  communicating  with  distant  places.  No  doubt 
the  soul,  through  sheer  force  of  habit,  fancies  it 
sees,  hears,  and  tastes,  upon  the  astral  plane  after  it 
leaves  the  body,  just  as  while  in  the  body  it  often 
fancies  it  feels  an  amputated  limb.  But  it  is  noth- 
ing more  than  the  association  of  ideas  acting  under 
the  force  of  habit,  in  the  former  case,  and  the 
pinching  by  the  cicatrix  of  the  amputated  nerve- 
ends,  in  the  latter,  which  nerve-ends,  again  through 
habit,  refer  the  sensation  to  a  non-existent  periph- 
eral distribution. 

There  seems  no  escape  from  the  fact,  therefore, 
that  sensuous  perception  ceases  with  the  death  of 
the  body,  and  that  whatever  is  preserved  of  the 
faculties  of  the  soul,  this  does  not  follow  man 
beyond  the  grave.  It  is  small  wonder,  in  view  of 
this,  that  death  seems  such  utter  annihilation,  for 
our  earth-lives  are  almost  entirely  based  upon  the 
reports  of  our  senses.  For  the  average  person  life 
consists  in  what  he  sees  and  hears,  together  with 
utterly  chaotic  and  useless  speculations  and  fancies 
induced  thereby.  The  average  man  imagines  that 
he  thinks,  but  he  only,  idly  and  vacuously,  re- 
thinks the  thoughts  of  the  very  few  who  really  do 
think.  Deprive  him  of  all  sensuous  contact  with 
external  things,  and  his  sole  recourse  for  thought 
or  imagination  would  lie  in  his  memory  of  what  he 
had  seen  or  heard,  and  when  this  failed  or  became 
out-worn,   insanity   or  idiocy  must   result.      This 


46  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

has  been  too  often  proven  in  the  cases  of  those  only 
partially  deprived  of  new  sensuous  association  by 
solitary  confinement.  Yet  the  ordinary  man  fan- 
cies that  he  has  had  suflh dent  experiences  during 
the  few  years  of  his  sensuous  life  to  occupy  his 
mind  throughout  the  eternities  of  the  future  heav- 
en which  he  ignorantly  hopes  to  attain.  There 
must  be  a  more  stable  foundation  laid  for  eternity 
than  in  mere  sensuous  experiences,  or  in  the 
thoughts  arising  therefrom,  if  the  Pilgrim  through 
the  Cycle  of  Necessity  ever  reaches  such  a  condition 
of  consciousness — which  is  exceedingly  improb- 
able. Meanwhile,  let  us  be  content  with  the  cy- 
cles of  rest  following  upon  those  of  activity  which 
nature  has  so  kindly  and  considerately  provided 
for  our  weaknesses  and  our  scanty  intellectual  ac- 
cumulations during  anyone  of  our  many  lives  in 
the  embodied  state. 

Most  theories  of  the  after-death  states  which  pre- 
vail in  the  West,  and  which  are  not  Christian, 
suppose  everlastingly  new  experiences.  In  other 
words,  the  traveller  through  the  great  Cycle  of  Ne- 
cessity is  hurried  from  experience  to  experience, 
without  having  the  necessary  time  to  find  out  the 
meaning  of  any  of  them,  or,  in  fact,  to  really  ob- 
serve any  of  them.  He  is  in  even  a  worse  condition 
than  a  passenger  in  one  of  our  modern  railway 
coaches.  The  latter  is  hurried  through  a  whirling 
panorama  of  moving  plain,  forest,  farm  or  city. 
travelling  both  day  and  night,  until  he  arrives  at 


DEATH    AND   THE   SENSES  47 

his  journey's  end.  If  the  object  be  to  simply  get 
there  in  the  shortest  possible  time,  it  is  accom- 
plished, but  if  it  be  to  observe  and  study  the  nature 
and  capacities  of  the  country  through  which  he 
hurries,  it  is  not.  Similarly,  if  the  Pilgrim  through 
the  Cycle  of  Necessity  had  only  to  hurry  to  the 
end,  the  rushing  from  this  to  new  experiences  upon 
some  other  world  would  quickest  accomplish  his 
object.  But  such  is  evidently  not  nature's  purpose. 
She  is  infinitely  patient  —  as  she  is  infinite  in  all 
other  aspects,  if  we  but  recognize  this  fact.  She  af- 
fords us  almost  endless  opportunities,  but  she  is  a 
rigidly  exacting  teacher,  and  will  accept  no  half- 
learned  lessons.  That  which  has  been  conceived 
in  the  great,  Infinite  Mind  will  some  day  be  accom- 
pli shed,  though  time  which  we  might  conceive  of  as 
eternity  be  occupied  in  the  task.  If  she  desires  to 
produce  an  eagle  to  wing  his  way  through  the  ether, 
she  may  not — and  does  not — fashion  him  out  of 
clay,  a  feathery  Adam,  and  launch  him  in  the 
skies.  She  takes  a  single  cell,  and  begins  a  patient 
evolution,  from  within  without,  slowly  molding  the 
potential  thought  into  the  potent  form  until  the 
eagle  appears,  though  long  ages  may  have  been 
consumed  in  the  process,  and  the  eagle  for  weary 
eons  a  creeping  reptile  before  he  at  last  leaves  the 
earth  for  the  sky.  So  there  is  no  warrant  in  all  or 
any  of  nature's  processes  for  supposing  that  this 
earth,  which  is  evidently  the  schoolhouse  of  the 
soul,  is   visited   but   once  by   its  pupil,   and  then 


48  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

abandoned  eternally  in  order  to  enter  new  fields  of 
unexplored  phenomena,  through  which  it  is  equally 
hurried  on  in  that  which  would  then  be  its  mad 
rush  through  the  Cycle  of  Being. 

Sensuous  perception  is  the  alphabet  only,  in  the 
great  curriculum  which  reveals  to  the  soul  the  mys- 
teries of  its  own  being.  It  is  but  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  once  learned  thoroughly  it  will  be  Laid 
aside  or  relegated  to  the  neconaary  but  unimport- 
ant position  of  all  alphabets  in  the  subsequent  pur- 
suit of  knowledge.  Nature  would  become  infinitely 
wearisome  did  not  her  object-lessons  present  in- 
finite variety.  We  do  sometimes  weary  of  sense- 
life,  but  only  because  we  linger  unnecessarily  long 
over  our  tasks.  However,  it  is  evidently  not  the 
object  of  nature  to  keep  us  eternally  employed  in 
learning  her  sensuous  alphabet.  Only  the  very 
rim  —  the  outermost  portion  of  being — can  be  per- 
ceived by  means  of  the  sense-organs.  We  may 
smell,  taste,  see,  hear,  and  touch  the  material  en- 
velope of  things,  but  if  we  do  not  evolve  the  power 
to  perceive  and  comprehend  the  essence  or  spirit, 
we  can  never  really  progress.  This,  nature  is  con- 
tinually pointing  out.  She  tempts  us  on  by  means 
of  sensuous  perception,  but  it  is  only  that  we  may 
enter  the  path  of  attainment.  She  bombards  us 
through  the  senses  in  order  to  compel  us  to  think ; 
she  surrounds  us  with  hostile  forces  to  evoke  our 
powers  of  resistance.  She  continuously  removes 
the  possibility  of  sensuous  perception  by  sleep  and 


DEATH   AND  THE   SENSES  49 

death  to  enforce  upon  our  understandings  the  truth 
that  sensuous  life  is  not  essential  to  the  existence  of 
the  soul,  but  is  only  a  temporary  aid  for  pupils  in 
her  primary  department. 

There  is  another  office  of  the  senses  which  must 
not  be  overlooked,  if  we  would  rightly  estimate 
their  place  and  function  in  the  development  of  the 
faculties  of  the  soul  and  the  economy  of  being. 
They  supply  the  resisting  force  which  enables  the 
true  faculties  of  the  soul  to  evolve.  As  we  have 
seen,  any  force  must  have  a  counter  force  or  it  be- 
comes non-existent.  So  that  the  senses  directly 
oppose  themselves  to  the  progress  of  the  soul  in 
this  stage  of  its  evolution.  They  demand  that  it 
shall  cease  to  struggle  on;  that  it  shall  abide  with 
them.  This  fact  is  the  reason  for  the  recognition 
of  two  souls  which  Goethe  found  warring  within 
his  breast;  for  the  spiritual  man  and  the  man  of 
earth  which  St.  Paul  found  opposing  each  other 
even  unto  death ;  it  is  the  key  to  the  statement  in 
the  Book  of  the  Golden  Precepts  that  "the  Self  of 
matter  and  the  Self  of  spirit  can  never  meet;  one 
of  the  twain  must  disappear ;  there  is  no  room  for 
both."  The  opposition,  the  allurements,  the  be- 
guilings,  the  temptations,  of  the  senses,  are  wise, 
beneficent,  and  wholly  for  the  soul's  good.  Nature 
may  seem  to  lay  snares  for  our  feet,  but  she  does  it 
to  teach  us  caution;  she  tempts  us  to  make  us 
strong;  she  adjusts  the  effects  to  the  foolish  and 
wicked  causes  which  we  set  up  to  teach  us  wisdom. 


50  THE   EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

Experience  is  the  great  Teacher,  and  errors  and 
mistakes — aye,  sins  and  vices — constitute  her 
most  effectual  object-lessons.  If  earth  were  a  place 
free  from  sensuous  temptation  and  sin,  the  soul 
would  leave  it  no  wiser  than  when  it  came. 

The  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  senses  di- 
rectly oppose  the  progress  of  the  soul,  and  this  in 
its  own  best  interests,  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon 
the  problem  of  being.  If  we  are  living  in  the 
senses  alone,  we  may  know  that  we  are  making  no 
progress,  but  rather  retrograding  —  as  we  undoubt- 
edly are,  if  we  permit  them  to  tempt  us  into  com- 
mitting sin  and  vice.  They  are  the  trainers  of  the 
soul,  and  if  they  do  not  buffet  and  tyrannize  over 
it — do  not  oppose  strength  against  strength  —  they 
fail  to  call  out  the  highest  of  which  the  soul  ii 
able.  The  greater  the  temptation,  the  greater  the 
opportunity  to  overcome ;  the  stronger  the  enemy, 
the  greater  the  credit  for  the  victory.  But  we  must 
face  the  fact,  too,  that  the  soul  may  lose  in  the 
contest.  There  would  be  no  merit  in  fighting  a 
battle  where  victory  was  pre-ordained,  where  the 
soul  could  not  but  win.  The  senses  are  the  devils 
of  all  religions,  the  tempters  in  every  soul -myth. 

We  think  the  senses  are  our  friends;  they  are,  in 
the  experiences  which  they  afford  the  soul,  and  in 
the  opportunities  for  the  development  of  strength 
which  the  struggle  with  them  offers,  but  they  be- 
come our  deadly  enemies  unless  we  conquer  and 
dominate   them.      Against   their  giant  might   the 


DEATH   AND  THE   SENSES  51 

soul  struggles  for  eons,  until  at  length  it  becomes, 
because  of  the  struggle,  a  still  stronger  giant,  and 
so  conquers  in  the  feud  of  the  ages.  Then  will  the 
soul  be  glad  that  it  had  such  opportunities,  as  it 
turns  from  this  conquered  foe  to  other  and  inner 
worlds  which  it  would  perhaps  have  never  dared  to 
attempt  had  it  not  the  discipline  and  strength 
growing  out  of  its  long  battlings  with  the  senses. 

Since  the  senses  directly  oppose  the  soul,  and 
since  nature  always  ensures  the  opportunity  to  rest 
after  any  struggle,  it  is  but  fitting,  and  a  portion  of 
her  great  plan,  that  these  should  be  laid  aside 
at  death.  It  is  but  the  tired  warrior  unbuckling 
his  sword  after  the  day's  battle  that  his  rest  may  be 
undisturbed.  Similarly,  the  senses  would  mar  and 
make  imperfect  the  rest  after  the  battle  of  life,  and 
the  soul  willingly  lays  them  aside  during  the  truce 
of  death,  even  if  it  must  again  gird  them  on  during 
its  next  struggle  with  the  temptations  of  earthly 
existence.  It  is  one  of  the  wisest  provisions  in  all 
the  compassionate  plan  of  nature  that  the  deafen- 
ing roar  of  the  senses  should  not  be  heard  during 
the  rest  beyond  the  grave. 


CHAPTER    VII 
EFFECT  OF  DEATH    UPON   THE    DESIRE-CONSCIOUSNESS 

DBS  I  R  B  of  some  nature  would  seem  to  be  at  the 
basis  of  all  manifestation.  It  is  as  univ.  r- 
sal,  as  omnipresent,  as  the  consciousness  of 
life  itself.  It  cannot  be  destroyed.  Like  all  forms  of 
force  it  may  be  changed  into  other  expressions,  but 
that  which  reappears  must  be  the  exact  equivalent 
of  that  which  disappeared;  it  is  under,  and  exemp- 
lifies, the  law  of  the  oonserv&tioil  of  force  and  the 
correlation  of  energy.  The  object  of  desire  may  be 
changed;  one  may  transmute,  by  hard  and  long- 
continued  effort,  his  selfish  into  unselfish  de- 
but the  force  will  not  be  lessened.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  will  be  apparently  increased,  for  selfish 
desire  stands  alone  and  is  inharmonic;  while  when 
unselfish  it  tends  to  become  harmonic  and  cosmic ; 
the  entity  draws  upon  and  becomes  in  desire  one 
with  the  great,  infinite  source  of  all  desire  and  ex- 
hibits all  the  desire-force  that  its  organism  per- 
mits. 

It  follows,  then,  that  desire  persists  beyond  the 
grave,  and  we  must  endeavor,  by  analogy  and 
logical  inference,  to  determine  its  nature,  mode  of 


DEATH   AND    DESIRE-CONSCIOUSNESS  53 

manifestation,  and  vehicle.  We  have  seen  *  that  it 
is  impossible  to  deprive  the  soul  of  a  material  body, 
even  though  this  be  as  tenuous  as  space  itself, 
and  that  there  can  be  no  reason  for  doubting  that 
when  the  physical  is  thrown  off,  the  soul  is  still 
clothed  with  an  inner  and  more  ethereal  form.  But 
we  may  go  still  farther  with  our  reasoning,  and  de- 
clare that  inasmuch  as  the  physical  body  is  un- 
doubtedly the  result  of  thought,  and  may  be,  and  is, 
changed  at  all  times  under  the  force  of  thought, 
this  inner  body  is  also  thought-constructed.  More 
than  this ;  by  the  facility  with  which  this  inner 
matter  takes  form  under  the  chaotic  stimulus  of 
dream,  we  have  every  reason  for  believing  that  the 
soul  instantly  constructs  for  itself,  under  the  stress 
of  its  desire  to  live,  a  body  in  every  respect  resem- 
bling in  form  and  appearance  that  which  is  out- 
worn. Reason  is  in  abeyance ;  imagination  comes 
to  the  rescue,  and  from  the  long  association  with 
the  old  body,  together  with  the  knowledge  and 
feeling  of  the  soul  that  it  is  still  alive,  the  new 
form  takes  automatically,  so  to  speak,  the  sem- 
blance of  the  old.  Besides,  the  germs  of  the  cen- 
ters of  sensation  must  be  preserved,  that  they  may 
expand  and  blossom  in  the  next  physical  body, 
so  that  there  is  every  reason  why  this  inner  form 
should  be  the  counterpart  of  the  one  cast  off. 
And  there  is  ample  evidence  in  the  shape  of  dop- 
plegangers,  or  double  appearances  of  the  same  per- 

*  Chapter  II 


54  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

son  in  two  apparently  identical  bodies,  to  warrant 
the  assertion  above  made  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
body  which  persists  beyond  the  grave.  It  is  physi- 
cal ;  and,  while  not  so  gross  as  that  with  which  the 
soul  is  now  clothed,  conserves  every  purpose,  at 
least  so  far  as  preserving  the  sense  of  identity 
I-am-ness,  which  the  physical  body  accomplisl 

The  nature  of  the  desires  which  follow  the  BOnl 
beyond  the  grave  can  but  be  a  continuation  and 
conservation  of  those  which  dominate  it  while  in 
the  physical  body.  Life  is  a  continuous  Bequ 
Bach  successive  state  the  legitimate  offspring  of 
those  which  preceded  it.  While  it  is  true  that  this 
sequence  may  be  interrupted  and  entirely  new  di- 
rections given  it  by  the  will,  yet  it  is  also  true  that 
the  human  will  is  almost  a  negative  factor  at  the 
present  stage  of  human  evolution.  The  animal 
will,  or  that  which  arises  in  the  lower  sensual  de- 
sires, almost  entirely  dominates  man,  and  this  is 
that  whose  origin  is  in  each  fleeting  moment,  and 
as  unstable  as  water.  It  is  entirely  incompetent  to 
control  and  divert  the  intense  desires  of  a  long  life 
of  animal  enjoyment  into  any  new  or  dift 
channel.  The  automatic  habit  of  desiring  certain 
thing!  will  of  itself  carry  the  s«»ul  far  beyond  the 
gates  of  the  mere  death  of  the  body. 

But  at  death  beneficent  nature  interrupts  the 
succession  of  events  by  entirely  depriving  the  soul 
of  any  new  sense-enjoyments.  There  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  no   seeing,  hearing,   or   tasting,  because   the 


DEATH   AND   DESIRE-CONSCIOUSNESS  55 

organs  are  destroyed  by  death,  and  the  most  active 
mind  will  weary  at  length  of  internal  desire  when 
external  gratification  no  longer  follows.  So  that, 
little  by  little,  these  material,  earthly  desires  die 
out  from  want  of  new  stimulus,  and  inner  and  more 
spiritual  ones  beghr  to  be  active.  Underneath  the 
most  stolid  exterior,  benumbed  by  the  most  selfish, 
and  perhaps  bestial,  gratification  of  the  animal  na- 
ture, lie  the  dormant  powers  of  a  soul  which  is 
really  divine.  However  tainted  we  may  be  with 
the  personal  equation,  there  are  few  who  have  not 
dreamed  dreams  of  benefiting  their  fellow-men; 
who  have  not  seen  visions,  however  dimly,  of  the 
dawning  of  universal  brotherhood;  of  an  era  of 
peace  and  good-will  upon  this  sin-cursed  earth. 
All  these  must  have  their  time  of  activity;  every 
longing  of  the  soul  must  be  satisfied ;  all  desire,  ex- 
cept that  unquenchable  one  to  live,  must  have  at- 
tained fruition  in  the  imagination,  and  have  died 
out  ere  the  soul  returns  to  earth  to  again  take  its 
part  in  the  grand  harmony  of  Being.  So  after 
death  one  by  one  the  desires  will  tend  to  become 
higher  and  purer,  until  the  soul  wearies  and  turns 
aside  from  the  very  last  of  them,  and,  breathing 
out  its  wordless  prayer  to  its  own  divine  Father  in 
heaven,  "  Let  me  live  again,"  returns  to  active  self- 
conscious  life,  amid  the  old  environments,  and  again 
takes  up  the  task  of  the  Ages  —  to  transmute,  in  the 
crucible  of  sorrow  and  suffering,  the  baser  metals  of 
earthly  life  into  the  gold  of  spiritual  existence. 


56  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

Desire,  then,  and  desire  alone,  creates  our  life  be- 
yond the  grave.  Each  will  construct  for  himself 
the  place  which  he  has  prepared  while  in  the  body, 
and  if  it  be  a  hell  or  a  heaven,  he  may  rest  content 
with  the  assurance  that  he  alone  has  been  its  sole 
architect. 


CHAPTER   VIII 
EFFECT    OF    DEATH    UPON    THOUGHT    AND    IMAGINATION 

WE  have  now  to  examine  more  fully  into  the 
effect  of  death  upon  thought.  By  separ- 
ating it  into  its  two  poles,  reason  and  im- 
agination, our  task  has  become  comparatively  easy. 
Thought,  as  reason,  is  almost  completely  destroyed 
by  death  as  an  active  process  in  the  ordinary  man. 
The  potentiality  of  thinking  remains,  but  its  pro- 
vocative, sense-stimuli,  no  longer  exists.  For  the 
chief  use  of  reason  upon  any  plane  of  manifested 
being  is  to  predicate  from  the  known  the  nature  of 
the  unknown ;  and  the  unknown  is  contacted 
through  exteriorizing  any  new  plane  by  means  of 
sense-organs  constructed  of  the  matter  of  that 
plane.  Upon  this  molecular  plane  the  sense-con- 
sciousness acting  through  molecular  sense-organs 
must  furnish  the  data  which  reason  examines  and 
from  which  it  draws  more  or  less  correct  con- 
clusions. Our  senses  also  furnish  the  data  with 
which  the  imagination  must  chiefly  occupy  itself 
until  man  has  attained  the  power  to  soar  beyond 
reason  into  the  certainty  of  intuition  and  feeling. 
They  can,  of  course,  furnish  no  immediate  data  for 
the  evolution   of   pity,  compassion,  love,  etc.,  but 


58  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

the  observation  which  they  render  imperative 
arouses  through  reason  these  latent  faculties  of  th" 
soul. 

Indeed,  it  will  be  well  to  remember  at  all  times 
that  the  soul  does  not  evolve,  in  the  scientific  sense 
of  the  term.  All  which  it  can  ever  become,  all  that 
the  eternal  ages  can  have  in  store  for  it,  lies  locked 
dp  in  the  infinite  potentialities  of  its  own  being,  and 
the  passing  panorama  of  physical  phenomena  only 
draws  this  into  manifestation  upon  the  finite  side 
of  life.  Upon  the  infinite,  unmanifested,  subjective 
side  of  Being,  may  be  all  knowledge,  all  wisdom 
and  all  power,  but  it  can  only  exist,  as  it  seems  to 
the  writer,  as  one  Infinite  Whole  or  Unity.  THAT 
is  utterly  unconscious*  by  our  standards,  for  these 
only  begin  with  differentiation  and  consequent 
manifestation.  The  evolution  (so-called)  of  the 
soul  consists  hut  in  the  transfer  of  the  potential- 
ities of  the  great  undivided,  subjective  SELF  into 
the  potencies  of  the  manifested,  differentiated  sep- 
arate selves.  And  it  may  be  that  the  sense  of  iso- 
lation and  separation  which  now  so  saddens  these 
separated  selves  will  disappear  when  once  the  soul 
truly  recognizes  this  fact  of  its  basic  One-ness  with 
the  Whole. 

Let  him  who  thinks  the  soul  evolves  in  the 
scientific  sense  of  the  word  pause,  and  rehVet. 
How  many  millions  of  years  would  it  take  for  the 
wind  and  rain  to  produce  a  plant  ?  or  for  the  sun 
to  grow  an  eye  upon  the  face  of  some  granite  boul- 


DEATH   AND   IMAGINATION  59 

der  exposed  directly  to  its  rays  ?  Evolution  is 
from  within  without,  and  the  potentiality  lies  ever 
within,  else  not  all  the  forces  of  the  external  uni- 
verse acting  through  the  eternal  ages  could  call  it 
forth.  The  wind  and  the  rain,  the  sun's  rays  and 
the  darkness,  force  evolution,  to  be  sure,  but  it  is 
an  evolution  of  something  quite  foreign  to  their 
own  qualities  —  something  to  be  found  within  the 
life  germ  alone.  So  that  the  phenomena  of  life  do 
not  produce,  de  novo,  pity,  hope  or  compassion,  but 
they  do  stimulate  these  qualities  of  the  soul  itself 
into  activity,  just  as  the  warmth  and  moisture 
compel  the  acorn  to  produce  out  of  the  germ  within 
if.«  If  the  mighty  oak.  The  germ-soul,  whether  of 
the  oak  or  the  man,  seizes  upon  the  elements  of 
that  plane  within  which  it  is  forced  into  activity, 
and  constructs  for  itself  a  body  which  truly  belongs 
to  that  particular  plane,  and  which  body  as  a 
form  may  be  said  to  evolve,  but  it  is  always  the 
inner  force  which  guides  the  construction  of  the 
form;  not  the  outer.  Forms  evolve  under  the 
stress  of  the  necessities  of  the  soul ;  not  the  soul 
itself.  The  so-called  forces  of  nature  only  afford 
the  soul  opportunity  to  transfer  the  potencies  of 
the  unmanifested  to  the  manifested  side  of  Being 
to  arouse  from  latency  into  activity  the  wondrous 
faculties  and  powers  concealed  within  itself. 

For  reason  to  persist,  it  must  be  supplied  with 
new  data  almost  continuously.  No  doubt,  the  soul 
does  reason  in  a  dazed  sort  of  way  during  that  in- 


60  THE    EVIDENCE  OF   IMMORTALITY 

terval  after  death  for  which  its  fading  memory 
affords  food.  But  this  must  be  soon  exhar. 
with  even  the  strongest  minds.  Isolate  a  man  from 
all  contact  with  his  fellows — from  all  sources  of 
new  phenomena  in  nature  about  him,  as  is  done  in 
solitary  confinement  in  certain  penal  institutions  — 
and  what  happens?  First  the  weakening  and  thru 
the  total  destruction  of  the  reasoning  powers.  The 
man  is  driven  into  the  excessive  use  of  his  imagin- 
ation, and  soon  fails  to  distinguish  the  real  from 
the  unreal. 

Let  him  who  thinks  that  he  has  laid  in  a  suffi- 
cient stock  of  knowledge  in  one  short  life  to  afford 
occupation  for  the  rest  of  eternity  sit  down  and  en- 
deavor to  anticipate  that  eternity  by  dwelling  in 
his  remembrances  for  even  one  hour,  and  be  will 
perceive  his  mistake.  So,  after  death,  however 
vivid  the  remembrances  of  earth-life  may  be,  the 
shutting  out  of  new  stimuli  in  the  shape  of  new  ex- 
perienceSj  will  soon  cause  reasoning  upon  the  old  to 
grow  distasteful,  and  they  will  no  longer  command 
the  attention  of  the  reason,  although  the  imagin- 
ation might  find  in  them  food  for  long  centuries 
of  activity  during  a  purely  subjective  existence 
after  death. 

There  are,  of  course,  certain  stimuli  which  tiow 
in  from  the  higher  pole  of  man's  being  which  may 
be  truly  termed  subjective.  But  these  are  very 
rare  in  the  ordinary  man,  and  consist  only  in  the 
more  or  less  feeble  attempts  of  the  conscience  to 


DEATH   AND   IMAGINATION  61 

force  reason  to  consider  the  purport  and  effects  of 
evil  acts.  These  stimuli  are  no  doubt  very  active 
for  a  short  period  after  death,  and  may  prove  a 
source  of  much  suffering  for  a  time.  But  the  to- 
tally different  conditions,  from  those  which  it  has 
been  taught  to  anticipate,  which  meet  the  soul  at 
death  must  soon  dissipate  all  fear  of  hell,  and  with 
the  disappearance  of  fear  (but  too  often  the  only 
means  of  commanding  attention  which  conscience 
possesses)  these  subjective  stimuli  are  no  longer 
heeded  and  the  imagination  assumes  full  control. 

Like  all  force,  that  of  the  imagination,  takes  the 
direction  of  least  resistance,  which  in  this  case  is 
that  of  the  greatest  desires,  and  so  each  soul,  when 
it  falls  completely  under  the  dominion  of  the  im- 
agination,  will  construct  for  itself  such  environ- 
ments as  afford  it  the  greatest  satisfaction.  As 
pointed  out  by  Madame  H.  P.  Blavatsky,  if  this  be 
the  Christian  heaven,  the  soul  will  imagine  itself  to 
be  there ;  if  it  be  a  Musselman  paradise,  this  will  be 
constructed.  And  no  doubt  the  sincere  Methodist 
will  spend  much  of  his  subjective  existence  before 
again  incarnating  in  a  long,  large  and  enthusiastic 
protracted  meeting,  during  which  innumerable  sin- 
ners will  be  converted. 

If  one  be  advanced  so  far  as  to  be  unable  to  be 
deluded  by  his  imagination,  his  reason  will  be  ex- 
ercised upon  these  inner  stimuli,  as  well  as  from 
the  stimuli  coming  from  the  exterior  of  his  plane 
of  thought,  for  the  power  to  exteriorize  inner  con- 


62  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

dition.8  of  matter  keeps  step  with  the  widening  of 
the  area  of  consciousness.  Such  an  one  will  use  his 
imagination  consciously  in  actual  creation,  and  not 
he  left  to  the  vagaries  of  its  unconscious  exercise  — 
a  good  example  of  which  latter  we  see  in  dreams. 
For  just  as  our  reason  is  very  imperfect,  so  al- 
our  imagination,  and  neither  give  scarcely  a  hint 
of  what  their  perfected  powers  really  are.  This 
universe,  for  example,  is  brought  into  existence  by 
the  creative  imagination  of  high  beings  who  were 
once  men ;  whom  we  may  reverence  but  not  worship, 
for  they  are  of  the  same  essence  as  ourselves,  and 
are  our  brothers — not  our  gods.  Where  they  are 
we  must,  in  the  eons  of  eternity,  surely  arrive. 

These  higher  stimuli  flow  into  the  mind  at  all 
times  during  life,  and  constitute,  as  we  have  Been, 
the  source  in  which  arises  the  higher  mentality  m 
contra-distinguished  from  the  lower.  They  consist 
of  the  reproofs  of  conscience,  flashes  of  intuition, 
feelings  of  pity  and  compassion,  etc.,  but  they  arc 
so  few  and  so  little  heeded,  that  they  are  hardly 
worth  considering  in  the  ordinary  man.  "Do  unto 
others  as  they  do  unto  you,"  is  good  enough  ethics 
for  him,  and  his  after-death  life  will  be  accord  in*: 
to  his  thought  and  desire.  He  who  is  seeking  to 
honestly  explore  the  beyond  will  take  facts  as  he 
finds  them  and  reason  accordingly,  and  will  not 
promise  an  eternity  of  happiness  to  one  who,  out  <  »f 
cowardice  perhaps,  repents  at  his  last  gasp.  The 
future  of  the  ordinary  man  will  be  constructed  out 


DEATH   AND   IMAGINATION  63 

of  the  same  material,  and  in  the  same  manner  as 
are  his  ordinary  dreams,  and  if  they  are  at  first 
unpleasant,  he  may  be  consoled  by  the  fact  that, 
with  the  cessation  of  his  earth-desires,  he  will  con- 
struct the  best  heaven  which  he  is  capable  of  en- 
joying. 

At  any  rate,  it  has  been  made  plain  that  the  soul 
can  not  hope  to  take  its  ordinary  reasoning  powers 
with  it  beyond  the  grave  until  it  has  crossed  many 
wide  and  deep  abysses  in  its  evolutionary  path- 
way. Reason  will  cease  for  the  simple  and  logical 
cause  that  there  will  be  nothing  to  think  about. 
No  new  stimuli  can  reach  the  soul  because  of  the 
destruction  of  the  sense  organs,  and  because  it  has 
not  constructed,  or  evolved,  those  which  will  enable 
it  to  exteriorize  the  next  inner,  ordinarily  termed 
the  astral  or  ethereal  according  to  the  bent  of  the 
mind.  That  these  organs  are  beginning  to  be 
evolved,  the  phenomena  of  trance,  clairvoyance, 
etc..  prove  beyond  per  ad  venture,  but  if  they  were 
evolved  to  any  large  extent  all  would  undoubtedly 
be  clairvoyant  and  clairaudient,  or  be  able  to 
see  and  hear  upon  astral  planes.  Those  souls  who 
have;  by  turning  their  attention  to  them,  stimu- 
lated abnormally  the  evolution  of  their  astral  or- 
gans will  have  an  unhappy  time  after  death,  for 
reasons  which  will  be  pointed  out  in  their  proper 
place. 

The  imagination  is.  as  we  have  asserted,  a  native 
faculty  of  the  soul   and  one  of  the  most  important 


64  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

which  it  possesses.  Within  its  mysterious  ree< 
lie  unlimited  potentialities.  During  life,  and  i 
cially  during  waking  life,  its  powers  are  but  seldom 
appealed  to,  and  never  to  create  upon  the  physical 
plane.  Yet  the  hour  must  come  to  every  soul  when 
it  shall  create  physically  by  the  power  of  imagina- 
tion — else  is  evolution  a  snare  and  this  material 
universe  an  unreal  nightmare  oppressing  the  sleep 
of  material  monsters.  For  though  this  uni\ 
was  planned  by  divine  Ideation,  yet  the  models 
upon  which  are  built  its  wilderness  of  forms,  were 
constructed  by  the  creative  imagination  of  entities 
which,  while  divine,  are  almost  infinitely  lower  than 
those  in  whose  thought  the  cosmic  plan  originated. 
Blind  force  taking  the  direction  of  the  least  n 
ance  never  did,  nor  never  will,  produce  form;  its 
efforts  can  only  end  in  chaos.  Yet  it  would  be  as 
absurd  to  suppose  the  Absolute,  or  whatever  we 
choose  to  term  Creative  Deity,  to  occupy  itself 
with  arranging  and  unfolding  the  petals  of  a  daisy, 
as  it  would  be  to  suppose  a  supervising  architect  to 
occupy  himself  in  actually  laying  the  bricks  of  the 
building  he  had  planned. 

But  the  architect  must  know  the  office  and  nature 
of  bricks,  and  be  able  to  determine  whether  or  not 
the  work  has  been  well  done.  Therefore,  as  these 
lower  cosmocratores  are  also  divine — are  a  portion 
of  the  Divine  Mind,  even  as  man  is  himself — so, 
through  this  lower  portion  of  itself,  is  Divine  Idea- 
tion conscious  of  even  the  tracings  upon  the  most 


DEATH   AND    IMAGINATION  65 

delicate  fern.  But  neither  the  tracings  nor  the  fern 
itself  are  reasoned  into  existence  —  they  are  imag- 
ined to  be,  and,  lo !  they  are. 

Reason  is  but  one-half  of  thought,  just  as  the 
negative  current  is  but  one-half  of  electricity. 
Indeed,  the  office  of  reason  and  that  of  imagina- 
tion are  so  different  that  while  unquestionably 
interdependent  faculties  of  the  soul,  their  action 
may  be  profitably  studied  independently  of  each 
other.  Reason  is  of  necessity  constantly  occupied 
with  the  problems  of  an  unknown  universe  and  its 
labors  therefore  placed  upon  the  pinnacle  of  use- 
ful human  attainment,  while  imagination  is  as 
constantly  but  foolishly  relegated  to  the  domain  of 
the  false  and  the  unreal.  It  is  assigned,  half 
contemptuously,  to  the  poet,  or  artist,  who  is  him- 
self looked  upon  as  a  visionary  and  unprofitable 
member  of  the  community.  Yet  imagination  re- 
venges herself  upon  her  self-appointed  master  by 
yielding  to  thought  but  vagaries,  when  her  powers, 
enfeebled  by  disuse,  are  called  by  some  unforseen 
necessity  into  active  operation. 

Still,  how  perfect  is  a  perfect  dream !  Yet  every 
detail  is  the  work  of  the  imagination  alone,  for 
reason  only  interferes  here  to  spoil,  and  causes  but 
an  unwelcome  awakening.  The  mingling  with  the 
loved  and  lost,  but  who  by  the  alchemy  of  the  im- 
agination are  no  longer  lost  but  gloriously  present; 
the  perfect  peace  and  harmony;  the  assembly  or 
landscape  with  not  one  detail  marred  or  absent — 


66  THE   EVIDENCE  OF   IMMORTALITY 

ought  not  these  things  to  awaken  us  to  the  wonder- 
ful faculty  of  the  soul  which  lies  ready  to  our  hand 
when  we  shall  become  wise  enough  to  use  it  ? 

And  this  glorious  faculty  is  untouched  by  death  ! 
Indeed,  the  perfect  stilling  of  the  roar  of  the  s< 
which  follows  upon  the  separation  of  the  soul  from 
its  physical  encasement  affords  it  ideal  conditions 
for  the  exercise  of  its  wonderful  powers.  As  we 
have  seen,  it  is  an  entirely  interior  faculty,  the  soul, 
even  though  awake,  abandoning  externals  com- 
pletely when  exercising  the  imagination  in  its 
purity.  To  think  a  thing  out — a  common  expres- 
sion—  is  slow  and  laborious,  but  to  imagine  it — 
how  different  is  the  process  !  Those  who  have  en- 
abled it  by  use  to  throw  off  its  partial  paralysis 
and  who  are  thus  able  to  exteriorize,  or  to  see  its 
creations  pass  before  their  eyes,  are  alone  capable 
of  appreciating  what  its  full,  unfolded  potencies 
may  contain.  With  eyes  closed  to  all  but  its 
feet  visions,  with  ears  dulled  to  all  but  its  magical 
sounds,  the  subjective  life  of  the  soul  under  the 
beneficent  administration  of  the  imagination  may 
and  does  become  the  very  highest  bliss. 

Its  exercise  during  waking  life  is  marred  by  a 
sense  of  unreality  caused  by  the  presence  of  the 
taint  of  reason.  Death  removes  all  this.  He  who 
has  suffered  the  amputation  of  a  limb  believes  that 
he  feels  the  presence  of  the  severed  toes  because  the 
apparatus  for  conveying  impressions  has  been  di- 
vided and  not  completely  destroyed.     Much  more 


DEATH  AND   IMAGINATION  67 

perfectly  will  the  inner  sense-centers  left  after  the 
destruction  of  the  body  by  death  continue  to  repro- 
duce the  scenes  and  impressions  of  the  last  life,  and 
all  under  the  guidance  of  the  dominant  desires  of 
that  life. 

Indeed,  this  is  so  faithfully  done  that  for  a  time 
it  constitutes  the  means  by  which  karma  *  adjusts 
effect  to  cause,  and  bestows  upon  each  one  the  kind 
of  a  subjective  life  which  he  deserves.  For  he  who 
has  been  low  and  vicious  will  have  low  and  vicious 
imaginings,  which  will  surely  end  with  imaginary 
detection  and  punishment.  And  this  must  con- 
tinue until  the  stock  of  sense-impressions  of  this 
nature  is  exhausted  and  those  of  a  deeper  stratum 
are  uncovered,  when  his  happy,  or  devachanic,  im- 
aginings will  begin. 

That  which  was  to  be  shown,  however,  is  the 
persistence  of  the  imagination  after  death,  and  the 
possibility  of  this  has  been  undoubtedly  estab- 
lished. Sleeping  is  but  a  shorter  death,  and  in  its 
states  of  consciousness  we  have  the  warrant  for  the 
persistence  of  the  imagination.  Most  dreams,  it  is 
true,  are  chaotic  reproductions  of  the  lowest  sense- 
impressions,  but  they  are  none  the  less  the  work  of 
the  imagination.  And  if  this  faculty,  at  work  in 
the  unwieldy,  molecular  matter  of  the  brain,  can 
produce  such  perfect  pictures,  how  much  more  must 
it  be  able  to  accomplish  when  its  vehicle  is  that 

*  Karma  —  that  truly  infinite  and  omniscent  law  which  adjusts 
effects  to  causes,  whether  on  the  material  or  spiritual  side  of  nature. 


68  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

ethereal,  perfected  substance  which  is  the  vesture 
of  the  soul!.  For  it  will  be  admitted  by  all  but 
those  who  deny  its  existence  altogether,  that  the 
soul  uses  this  material,  molecular  body  as  a  vehicle 
to  express  its  innate  powers,  and  to  bring  it  into 
sensuous  relation  with  the  earth.  It  is  also  plain 
that  the  matter  of  which  the  body  is  constituted  is 
gross  and  unwieldy,  and  that  the  soul  with  diffi- 
culty enforces  obedience.  Man's  life  is  a  continu- 
ous warfare  with  the  passions  and  appetites  of  the 
body,  thus  showing  to  all  but  the  willfully  blind 
that  the  soul  is  the  transient  tenant  of  its  tenement 
of  clay.  Can  not  the  soul,  then,  exhibit  its  divine 
qualities  in  other  bodies,  and  exhibit  them  with  all 
the  greater  freedom,  if  these  bodies  be  composed  of 
matter  more  plastic  and  yielding?  Nor  can  it  1><- 
deprived  by  death  of  any  but  those  faculties  which 
depend  for  expression  entirely  upon  the  matter  of 
the  grossly  physical  body — in  other  words,  it  will 
be  deprived  of  sense-impressions  only.  And  it  will 
only  be  deprived  of  these  until  it  shall  have  built 
for  itself  a  new  body,  when,  after  having  assimilated 
all  the  wisdom  possible  out  of  the  experiences  of  its 
past  life  during  its  subjective  rest  after  death,  it  re- 
turns again  to  the  physical  earth  to  renew  its  old 
search  for  wisdom. 


CHAPTER   IX 

EFFECT    OF    DEATH    UPON    INTUITION    AND    FEELINGS 

INTUITION  is  but  the  wisdom  stored  in  the 
higher  ego  (incarnating  ego)  as  the  result  of 
its  experiences  during  its  many  incarnations 
upon  earth.  The  memory  of  these  experiences  may 
be  lost  forever,  and  it  is  well  that  this  is  so,  for 
it  would  consist  very  largely  in  a  record  of  mis- 
takes and  sins  through  many  a  long  and  weary 
life,  but  the  net  result,  or  the  wisdom  resulting 
therefrom,  remains.  As  has  been  pointed  out,  the 
man  who  uses  the  multiplication  table  in  his  daily 
occupation  does  not  wish  to  be  encumbered  by  the 
memory  of  the  hours  spent  in  learning  it  origin- 
ally. It  is  one  of  the  many  evidences  of  the  wis- 
dom of  Those  who  planned  this  universe  that  its 
dissolution  erases  the  records  of  the  past,  and  only 
preserves  the  effects.  The  record  of  each  earth-life 
is  erased  from  the  physical  brain  at  each  death  of 
the  body,  and  although  preserved  elsewhere  in  the 
more  permanent  vestures  of  the  soul  for  a  time, 
yet  these,  too,  will  likewise  be  overtaken  with  de- 
struction as  the  universes  of  manifestation  slowly 
lapse  back  into  Unmanifested  Being.  Thus  eter- 
nity presents   an  eternal  tabula  rasa;    an   infinite 


70  THE   EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

opportunity  to  begin  anew,  with  the  memory  of 
past  errors  all  expunged,  while  at  the  same  time 
preserving  the  wisdom  accruing  therefrom. 

But  intuition  is  the  wisdom  resulting  from  past 
experiences,  and  can  never  be  destroyed.  It  will 
pass  on  life  after  life,  and  when  all  life  as  we  can 
understand  it  is  done,  it  will  still  be  preserved  in 
the  unfathomable  abysses  of  Infinite  Wisdom. 

So  with  the  Feelings.  In  the  last  analysis,  they 
are  consciousness  itself  and  are  just  as  indestruct- 
ible as  is  this.  The  only  question  which  could 
possibly  arise  is,  whether  the  feelings  are  preserved 
as  an  individual  expression;  whether  egoism  ac- 
companies them  back  to  the  Infinite,  as  it  has  cer- 
tainly accompanied  them  as  a  potentiality  in  their 
journey  out  from  that  Infinite.  That  the  feeli] 
ego-hood,  of  I-am-I,  has  arisen  in  nature,  and  is 
now  expressing  itself  in  man,  is  conclusive  proof 
that  it  came  from  Divinity  and  will  re-ho 
divine,  even  if  it  does  not  constitute  the  very  es- 
sence of  Divinity  itself,  as  many  philosophers, 
notably  Hegel,  have  believed  and  taught.  No 
stream  can  rise  higher  than  its  source,  and  if  we 
find  the  feeling  of  I-am-ness  expressing  the  very 
acme  of  consciousness  and  at  the  apex  of  evolution, 
we  may  expect  confidently  that  it  will  be  still 
farther  accentuated  as  man  rises  to  high. 
Our  selfish  conception  of  it  will  and  must  disap- 
pear, but  who  can  conceive  of  the  power  and 
glory  of  an  Hierarchial  I — a  great  note  of  common 


DEATH   AND  THE    FEELINGS  71 

consciousness  as  much  beyond  the  petty,  personal  I 
as  the  united  strength  of  all  humanity  is  superior 
to  that  of  any  unit  thereof  ?  And  beyond  this  lies 
the  cosmic  I,  and  still  beyond  the  universal  I-am- 
myself-and-all-others,  of  perfected  bliss ! 

So  that  we  have  every  warrant  for  assuming  that 
the  feelings  will  always  be  associated  with  an  I 
who  feels  them,  and  that  this  I  will  never  cease  to 
be  our  very  selves,  although  we  may  be  made 
happy  beyond  all  conception  in  finding  that  within 
that  which  we  feel  and  know  to  be  our  own  ego- 
hood  is  also  that  of  all  humanity — of  all  that 
lives  and  breathes. 

For  this  is  brotherhood :  to  find  within  our  own 
hearts  all  our  lost  brothers;  to  hear  in  our  own 
voice,  the  tone,  the  mass-chord  of  all  humanity, 
and  to  feel  that  in  the  far-off  eons  to  come  we  may 
be  able  to  include  the  entire  manifested  universe  in 
one  solemn,  cosmic  harmony  that  breathes  its.  and 
our,  bliss  in  one  great  I- AM  ! 


CHAPTER    X 

THE    MORTAL   AND    THE    IMMORTAL    MAN 

IT  has  become  clear  in  the  course  of  our  suulv 
that  man  falls  naturally  into  a  mortal  and  an 
immortal  portion  —  a  perishable  and  an  im- 
perishable part  but  thinly  welded  together  and 
easily  separable.  The  materialistic  belief  that  the 
whole  man  perishes  at  death,  and  the  equally  ma- 
terialistic teaching  of  one  life  in  a  physical  body 
followed  by  an  incomprehensible,  eternal  heaven 
or  hell,  are  both  due  to  the  same  causes.  They 
arise  in  mistaking  the  man  of  tlesh  for  the 
man,  and  for  the  somewhat  childish  reason  that  he 
is  tangible  and  in  sensuous  evidence,  while  the  real 
man  is  not  discoverable  by  the  senses  but  must  be 
sought  out  by  the  aid  of  reason  —  a  thing  which  we 
proudly  claim  to  possess,  but  of  which  only  the 
first  faint  functionings  are  beginning  to  flutter  and 
stir  in  our  being.  Reason,  in  the  brain-mind,  has 
only  reached  the  stage  of  ignorant  egotism,  that 
wherein  it  sees  nothing  unreasonable  in  supposing 
that  the  sun  and  moon  were  created  solely  to  light 
man's  doddering  footsteps  by  day,  while  the  stars 
which  inhabit  the  unthinkable  abysses  of  space  are 
only  put  there  to  afford  a  very  imperfect  substitute 


MORTAL  AND    IMMORTAL   MAN  73 

for  the  sun  and  moon  at  night !  Nothing  absurd  is 
discovered  in  the  teaching  that  this  is  the  only  in- 
habited spot  in  the  universe !  Yet  we  think  we 
reason !  It  is  well  that  the  magnificent  reason  of 
our  brain-minds  does  not  follow  us  beyond  this 
very  imperfect  life,  but  must  be  constructed  anew 
at  each  return  to  earth. 

The  mortal  portion  of  man,  having  been  con- 
structed especially  to  relate  his  consciousness  to  this 
earth — to  enable  him  to  approach  a  state  of  matter 
far  below  that  of  the  real  home  of  the  soul  by 
means  of  the  coarse  and  imperfect  senses — it  is 
small  wonder,  in  view  of  his  imperfect  reasoning 
powers,  that  this  specially  constructed  bundle  of 
sense-organs  should  appear  of  such  paramount 
importance,  or  that  earthly  concerns  should  loom 
so  large  upon  his  mental  horizons.  Indeed,  it  is 
right  that  we  should  bend  our  energies  and  direct 
our  will  towards  any  task  at  hand,  and  not  permit 
our  minds  to  go  wool-gathering.  Our  present 
task  is  to  understand  the  meaning  of  life  here,  and 
to  profit  by  its  lessons,  for  the  entire  universe  is 
divine,  and  no  portion  of  it  unnecessary  to  the 
soul's  experiences.  It  is,  therefore,  only  the  fatuity 
of  unnecessary  ignorance  which  makes  man  blind 
to  this  indwelling,  immortal  portion.  All  nature 
cries  aloud  that  existence  does  not  depend  upon  the 
in.itorial/orm,  and  demonstrates  this' beyond  cavil 
every  time  it  reproduces  the  dead  plant,  with  every 
detail  preserved  in  all  its  perfection,  from  a  seed  or 


74  THE   EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

bulb.  Except  in  a  few  instances,  as  the  lotus,  for 
example,  there  is  absolutely  no  hint  of  the  form 
which  lies  hidden  in  the  germ  that  reproduces  either 
animal  or  vegetable  creations.  The  one  seed  will 
evolve  from  its  mysterious  recesses  the  humble,  tiny 
fern ;  its  exact  counterpart,  the  acknowledged 
monarch  of  the  forest.  Two  ovums,  almost  exactly 
identical  in  external  appearance  and  internal  his- 
tology, will  result  in  the  colossal  elephant  and  the 
pigmy  mouse.  This  divergence  in  form  is  solely 
due  to  the  inner  force  coming  from  the  soul-side  of 
nature;  the  so-called  external  forces — the  air,  sun- 
shine, earth,  water,  etc, —  are  powerless  to  produce 
the  slightest  original  variation. 

Scientists  have  dissected  and  analyzed  the  ma- 
terial universe  to  discover  the  secret  source  of  the 
wonderful  development  of  life,  and  have  at  last 
been  compelled  to  admit  the  old,  despised  vital 
force  as  a  factor.  And,  however  external  the 
sources  of  the  ordinary  physical  forces  may  appear, 
this  vital  force  comes  from  within  —  from  some 
mysterious  realm  to  which  the  senses,  aided  with 
all  the  instruments  of  precision  of  science,  can  not 
penetrate.  This  fact  ought  to  have  directed  atten- 
tion  to  an  inner  man  as  the  permanent  base  upon 
which  the  outer  was  constructed,  but  it  did  not. 
Earth  and  its  transient  concerns  have  been  held  to 
be  of  paramount  importance,  and  the  interests  of 
the  real  man  neglected  and  forgotten. 

Man  loses  by  death  his  sense-organs  which  re- 


MORTAL  AND   IMMORTAL  MAN  75 

lated  him  to  the  earth  of  molecular  matter.  With 
them  he  loses  the  power  to  externalize  his  universe, 
and  must  live  in  a  world  of  his  own  creating  until 
he  rebuilds  his  sense-organs  upon  reincarnating. 
The  senses,  also,  having  furnished  the  data  upon 
which  reason  was  exercised,  the  latter  power  slowly 
ceases  its  functions  under  the  lack  of  new  stimuli. 
Comparing,  therefore,  the  permanent  with  the  im- 
permanent portions  of  man's  nature,  we  have : 

THE    MORTAL    MAN  THE    IMMORTAL    MAN 

The  Senses  The  Consciousness  of  Life 

The  Lower  Desires  The  Imagination 

The  Emotions  Intuition 

The  Brain-Mind  The  Feelings. 

Reason    (due  to    objective-      Reason  (due    to  subjective 

stimuli)  stimuli) 

The  Physical  Body  The  Causal  Body 

The    Astral    Body  (Linga 

Sarira) 

It  is  at  once  apparent  how  perfect  is  the  man 
who  passes  on  from  life  to  life — the  eternal  Pil- 
grim, for  whom  death  does  not  exist — and  how 
imperfect  and  unimportant  the  unreal  man  who 
passes  away  at  death.  The  physical  and  astral 
body  perish,  and  with  them  go  all  the  lower  man — 
his  impulses,  his  lower  desires,  emotions,  brain- 
mind,  and  all  thought  which  is  aroused  by  the 
senses.  But  the  soul  takes  with  it  the  conscious- 
ness of  life,  the  imagination,  the  higher,  or  subjec- 
tively aroused  reason,  the  intuitions,  the  feelings, 


76  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

and  all  these  in  a  body  so  stable,  yet  so  ethereal, 
that  no  entity  struggling  in  the  cycle  of  evolution 
can  disturb  the  perfect  peace  and  safety  of  man's 
subjective  existence.  Nay,  no  entity  lower  than  the 
gods  can  even  know  of  his  existence — much  less 
disturb  his  felicity.  He  exists  far  above — or  with- 
in—  the  great  ocean  of  being;  where  change  is  not; 
where  the  ceaseless  struggle  for  place,  which  af- 
fords the  necessary  training  ground  for  entities 
actively  climbing  the  ascents  of  life,  is  unknown. 
He  does  not  exist;  he  IS.  He  has  ascended,  if  but 
temporarily,  to  the  Sources  of  Life;  lie  sits  beside 
the  Fountain  of  Being. 

It  may  seem  startling  to  the  unthinking  to  a- 
that  the  brain-mind  perishes;  yet  not  only  is  this 
true,    but    all     ]  would    be    choked    and 

stopped,  if  it  were  not  bo.  That  this  is  true  is  self- 
evident  from  the  fact  that  all  start  with  absolutely 
no  mind  at  birth.  Whatever' hypothesis  of  life  we 
may  set  up,  all  must  admit  that  the  brain-mind  is 
the  result  of  experience  and  education,  acting  un- 
der the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  The  higher  mind 
comes  over  as  a  potentiality,  and  is  only  capable 
of  exhibiting  its  powers  when  the  necessary  condi- 
tions are  furnished.  Genius  is  evidence  that  the 
higher  mind,  or  that  belonging  to  the  reincarnating 
ego,  is  enabled  to  act,  and  its  rarity  is  the  warrant 
for  the  assertion  that  the  great  mass  of  humanity 
live  only  in  the  brain-mind.  For  much  that  is 
called    genius   is   not   at   all    this   divine   faculty. 


y 

SRSITY 

^CALIFORH^ 
MORTAL  AND    IMMORTAL  MAW  ■  "■       ■* 

Musical,  mathematical,  and  other  infant  prodigies, 
are  often  but  the  effects  of  brain-mind  training  ac- 
quired in  former  lives,  and  which  passes  over  as  the 
"karmic  heirloom  of  the  lower  ego — not  the  higher. 
A  very  fine  mathematician,  for  example,  may  be 
very  low  morally,  and  the  same  is  true  of  musicians, 
which  shows  that  this  is  not  the  higher  ego  manifes- 
ting its  divine  functions,  but  a  karmic  sequence  of 
lower,  brain-mind  training.  The  tendency  to,  and 
expertness  in,  thieving  or  counterfeiting,  may  be, 
and  is,  also  transmitted  as  the  effects  of  a  former 
life  of  crime,  yet  we  would  hardly,  in  these  in- 
stances, term  the  unfortunate  possessor  a  genius. 
But  this  has  been  fully  dealt  with  in  the  previous 
works  of  the  author. 

It  is  evident  that  the  brain-mind  represents  the 
mortal  man,  for  it  perishes  at  the  death  of  the  mor- 
tal portion.  The  possessor  of  an  hundred  painfully 
acquired  languages,  for  example,  loses  all  recollec- 
tion of  them  after  death, or  at  least  before  reincar- 
nating. Much  of  the  training  and  instruction  that 
our  brain-minds  receive  is  positively  hurtful,  as  cul- 
tivating shrewdness  and  similar  qualities  at  the  ex- 
pense  of  the  finer  feelings  and  altruistic  sentiments. 
Witness  the  philanthropist,  who  is  almost  univer- 
sally regarded  as  a  kind  of  softy,  to  be  admired,  per- 
haps, but  not  imitated  by  any  means. 

So  that  he  who  is  compelled,  or  rather  permitted, 
by  death  to  retire  to  the  divine  shores  of  subjective 
life,  leaves  little,  indeed,  of  any  value  behind.     He 


78  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

is  in  an  incorruptible  body ;  he  has  the  conscious- 
ness of  pure,  blissful  existence ;  he  constructs  his 
own  paradise  by  the  divine  power  of  his  imagina- 
tion;  intuition  and  the  higher  reason  abide  as 
faculties  for  use  in  the  next  earth-life ;  the  divine 
feelings  of  pity,  compassion,  love,  hope,  find  in  this 
subjective  state  ideal  conditions  for  their  divine 
functions.  For  who  in  the  body,  even,  would  not 
relieve  suffering  and  make  others  happy  if  he  could 
do  so  without  cost  to  himself,  and  without  con- 
scious effort  ?  All  this  the  soul  freed  by  death  from 
bodily  desires  and  limitations  can  in  its  imagina- 
tion do  and,  therefore,  however  much  it  may  b< 
turbed  by  its  lower  desires  for  a  time  after  death, 
when  these  subside,  and  the  real,  subjective  life  of 
the  true  ego  begins,  it  will  be  dominated  only  by 
the  very  highest  desires  of  which  it  ever  dreamed 
while  in  that  body  now  cast  aside. 


CHAPTER   XI 


THE    PROCESS    OF    DEATH 


DEATH  itself  is  at  present  a  most  mysterious 
and  appaling  phenomenon.  It  takes  place 
under  the  law  of  cycles,  which  is  itself  in- 
explicable. We  can  only  recognize  death  as  a  law 
of  Being,  and  submit  to  its  immutable  decrees. 

It  is  a  phenomenon  of  change,  and,  of  course,  oc- 
curs most  quickly  and  oftenest  where  change  is  the 
most  rapid.  And  that,  unfortunately  for  mortals, 
is  exactly  the  condition  which  obtains  in  our  un- 
stable world.  Not  in  all  the  eternities  during  which 
it  lias  existed  has  it  been  for  a  single  moment  the 
same.  It  is  a  Wandering  Jew — unable  to  find  rest 
until  it  shall  be  at  last  dissipated  in  space.  From 
the  moment  in  which  its  star-dust  began  to  be  mag- 
netically attracted  towards  a  non-magnetic  center, 
throughout  all  the  states  of  fire,  gaseous,  liquid,  and 
solid,  down  to  that  in  which  it  slowly  dissipates  in 
space — a  cold,  dead  moon  —  a  world  is  under  the 
domain  of  change;  of  restless,  resistless  motion 
not  only  as  a  mass,  but  down  to  its  tiniest 
molecule. 

Death  is  a  change  which  need  be  neither  mys- 
terious nor  appalling.     It  is  our  benighted  view  of 


80  THE    PROCESS  OF   DEATH 

life,  the  belief  that  we  are  here  upon  earth  for  the 
first  time,  and  that  we  leave  it  for  all  eternity  in 
dying,  which  makes  it  seem  dreadful  and  awesome. 
We  have  refused  to  look  beyond  the  grave  from  the 
point  of  view  of  common  sense — to  say  nothing  of 
true  science — and  can  see  naught  in  the  gulf  be- 
yond; a  gulf  entirely  of  our  own  creating.  The 
most  superficial  examination  ought  to  have  con- 
vinced us  that  the  body  was  not  the  real  man,  and 
that  its  perishing  was  but  a  comparatively  trivial 
incident  in  the  progress  of  the  soul.  The  body 
changes  constantly  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave  j 
the  soul  is  a  spectator,  and  its  recognition  of  self  is 
immutable  and  eternal.  It  lives  in  the  (  t«  r 
mil  Present,  in  that  NOW  whose  mysterious 
persistence  affords  mortals  a  hint  of  the  real  na- 
ture and  essence  of  eternity.  It  is  NOW  with  the 
first  dawn  of  consciously^  in  the  child;  it  is  N<  >W 
when  the  vigor  of  manhood  is  attained;  it  is  still 
NOW  when  the  panorama  of  molecular  life  fades 
because  the  failing  bodily  senses  no  longer  enable 
the  soul  to  perceive  it.  Ought  not  this  persistent 
now-ness  to  lead  us  to  suspect  the  truth — that  the 
soul  belongs  not  to  time,  but  to  eternity?  and  that 
time  is  but  an  illusion  caused  by  the  fleeting  ] pan- 
orama of  material  phenomena  ? 

The  body  dies,  as  said,  in  obedience  to  the  law  of 
cycles — that  mysterious  ebbing  and  flowing  of 
something  which  would  seem  to  be  akin  to  a  posi- 
tive  and   negative  life-electricity,  and  which   will 


THE   PROCESS  OF   DEATH  81 

not  permit  a  permanent  association  of  the  life- 
atoms,  but  drives  them  asunder  when  some  un- 
known point  of  equalization  of  energy  is  reached. 
Normal  death  is  as  painless  and  far  more  pleasant 
than  the  sinking  into  sleep  of  a  tired  wanderer. 
That  tremendous  energy  which,  in  the  case  of  the 
the  heart  suffices  to  lift  so  many  tons  of  foot- 
pounds of  blood  during  the  twenty-four  hours,  and 
in  the  deltoid  muscle  alone  enables  it  to  exert  a 
force  of  some  six-hundred  pounds,  when,  after 
death,  the  same  muscle  will  only  sustain  a  bare 
fifty ;  that  mysterious,  wonderful  force  is  with- 
drawn, and  the  body  dies — quietly,  suddenly,  pain- 
lefisly.  No  illness  precedes  it,  for  it  is  a  perfectly 
normal  process.  If  there  be  suffering  in  abnormal 
death  it  is  because  it  is  abnormal,  but  it  is  doubtful 
even  in  this  case.  The  accumulation  of  carbonic 
acid  gas  through  the  failure  of  the  respiration  and 
circulation  acts  as  an  anaesthetic  in  almost  all 
cases,  and  death  is  thus  rendered  painless. 

But  during  this  process  of  physical  death  occurs 
an  awesome,  fearsome  hour  for  the  soul.  It  is 
brought  directly  before  the  Judgment  Seat,  and  sees 
all  its  acts  pass  before  its  freed  and  quickened 
vision,  knows  wherein  it  has  sinned,  and  in  what  it 
has  done  well.  For  the  Judge  upon  the  Judgment 
Seat  is  ITSELF.  Freed  from  the  clamor  and  con- 
fusion of  the  senses,  with  all  its  powers  evoked  and 
quickened  by  the  tremendously  important  event 
which  is  taking  place,  the  soul  itself  sits  in  judg- 


82  THE   EVIDENCE  OF   IMMORTALITY 

merit  upon  its  past  life.  No  sin  can  be  hidden,  for 
the  soul  knows  them  all — participated  in  them 
all.  There  can  be  no  hiding  from  that  GOD  which 
we  suddenly  find  our  real  selves  to  be!  All  through 
life  the  Judge  has  spoken — has  warned  its  lower, 
incarnated  self  when  it  walked  in  evil  paths,  but 
alas,  too  often  the  solemn  voice  was  unheeded  ! 
Materialistic  philosophy  (so-called)  has  even  tried 
to  still  its  counsels  by  declaring  it  to  be  only  the 
outcome  and  product  of  education  and  environ- 
ment. For  the  voice  of  the  Judge  during  life  is 
CONSCIENCE,  and  although  it  may  say  different 
things  to  different  men — may  even  issue  contradict- 
ory commands  in  different  cases — yet  it  never  fails 
to  warn  a  man  of  the  wrong  he  contemplates,  and 
to  point  out  the  best  and  highest  path  which  he 
rendered  it  possible  for  him  to  take.  That  it  tells 
a  savage  that  he  ought  to  kill  his  enemy,  is  not  1..  - 
cause  it  is  right  to  kill  enemies,  but  because  the 
savage  has  so  benumbed  its  voice  that  nothing  bet- 
tor than  this  can  be  understood  by  him.  From 
whatever  heights  one  may  have  attained,  into  what- 
ever depths  one  may  have  fallen,  its  voice  is  always 
perceived,  counseling  the  very  highest  which  that 
particular  soul  can  understand.  It  holds  no  one 
to  account  except  for  those  conceptions  of  right 
and  wrong  which  he  is  capable  of  understanding. 
It  draws  no  hard  and  fast  line  to  which  all  must 
hew.  One  man's  right  is  not  another's  unless  he  is 
capable  of  realizing  fully  its  ethical  bearings.     It 


THE   PROCESS  OF  DEATH  83 

will  lead  any  soul  out  of  any  depths,  however  low, 
if  he  but  live  up  to  its  highest  warnings,  for  as  his 
moral  perceptions  become  less  clouded  by  his  up- 
ward effort,  so  will  it  set  newer  and  ever  higher 
conceptions  before  him.  Because  it  speaks  in  dif- 
fering voices  to  differing  men  is  not  that  the  source 
is  less  divine,  but  that  the  vehicle  through  which  it 
must  make  itself  heard  is  less  perfect. 

Man  is  the  very  highest  expression  of  divinity 
upon  earth,  and  the  depth  and  grandeur  of  that 
divinity  he  little  realizes  when  incarnated  in, 
and  listening  to,  the  roar  of  the  senses.  But  in  the 
solemn  hour  of  death  these  are  stilled,  the  soul 
stands  in  the  presence  of  its  Higher  Self;  judges 
itself,  and  KNOWS  that  the  judgment  is  just.  This 
reviewing  of  the  acts  and  thoughts  of  the  passing 
life  is  too  well  attested  by  science  to  be  questioned. 
Case  after  case  of  partial  drowning,  or  hanging,  or 
deadly  peril  to  bodily  existence,  have  been  recorded 
wherein  the  whole  life,  down  to  its  most  minute  de- 
tail, has  passed  in  review  under  the  extraordinary 
stimulus  of  the  circumstances  which  encompassed 
the  soul.  But  such  cases  are  only  faint  foreshad- 
owings  of  that  which  takes  place  when  death  has 
really  seized  upon  the  body.  Here,  the  busy  brain 
deliberately  reviews  the  ebbing  life  to  its  uttermost 
detail,  and,  without  passing  any  formal  sentence, 
simply  KNOWS  the  effect  which  will  await  each 
act  if  the  account  have  not  been  already  balanced. 
It  sees  the  circumstances  which  must  surround  it  in 


84  THE   EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

its  next  life,  in  order  to  satisfy  that  exact  justice 
which  holds  the  universe  in  its  unrelaxing  grasp. 
Being  divine,  and  face  to  face  with  its  own  divinity, 
it  demands  that  justice  be  done  even  though  the 
future  life  which  confronts  it  be  full  of  the  blackest 
horror.  Nothing  but  personal  suffering,  it  well 
knows,  can  atone  for  the  personal  sin.  The  soul 
stands  in  the  presence  of  the  Christ,  which  is  itself ! 
None  but  the  SELF  may  atone  for  its  lower  Belvee, 
and  this  can  only  be  done  by  affording  exact  justice 
in  every  instance  of  transgression. 

That  the  soul  willingly  yields  to  the  delights  and 
temptations  of  sensuous  existence,  is  shown  in  that 
sincere  repentance  which  so  often  accompanies  ill- 
ness. This  fact  has  passed  into  a  popular  proverb 
which  runs : 

The  devil  got  sick  — 

The  devil  a  monk  would  be ; 

The  devil  got  well  — 
The  devil  a  monk  was  he  1 

Such  an  universal  desire  and  resolution  to  live  a 
better  life  when  this  physical  one  seems  to  be  ap- 
proaching its  end,  is  the  surest  proof  that  we  are 
not  living  up  to  the  well-understood  behests  of  our 
conscience.  If  we  quail  in  the  presence  of  the 
voice  of  conscience  in  sickness,  how  will  it  be  when 
the  soul  stands  in  its  presence  with  all  its  deeds 
fully  unveiled  in  the  hour  of  death  ? 

This  is  the  bar,  and  the  only  bar,  before  which 
the  soul   will   ever  be  arraigned.      In   this   court 


THE   PROCESS  OF  DEATH  85 

there  can  be  no  partiality,  no  forgetting,  no  con- 
fusing, no  forgiving.  Only  justice — exact  justice. 
The  soul  will  go  forth  from  it  not  to  everlasting 
damnation  nor  to  eternal  bliss,  but  to  the  atone- 
ment of  another  life,  where  it  will  have  opportunity 
to  right  all  the  wrong  it  has  done,  and  to  stand  be- 
fore itself  at  the  end  of  its  long  pilgrimage,  justi- 
fied and  glorified! 

We  can  follow  by  the  light  of  scientific  facts  the 
fate  of  the  soul  even  after  death  for  a  time,  and 
know  what  awaits  it.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
life  is  continuous,  and  that  no  hard  and  fast  lines 
divide  life  in  the  body  from  that  out  of,  and  be- 
yond, the  body.  One  of  the  most  instructive  ex- 
periences along  this  line  of  phenomena  is  recorded 
by  a  physician.  It  is  especially  valuable  because 
of  the  trained  power  of  observation  and  ability  to 
analyze  which  its  experiencer  possessed.  He  re- 
lates that  as  he  lay  upon  his  bed,  severely  ill,  he 
appeared  to  die — and  did  die,  so  far  as  the  obser- 
vation of  his  attendants  could  determine.  He 
found  himself  out  of  his  body  and  watching  with 
a  curious  interest  the  weeping  relatives  who  sur- 
rounded it.  Suddenly  he  perceived  that  he  was 
entirely  naked,  and  feeling  somewhat  abashed  he 
started  to  leave  the  room,  but  had  not  reached  the 
door  when,  to  his  surprise,  he  found  himself 
clothed.  Passing  out  of  the  house,  he  noted  all  the 
objects  with  which  long  association  had  made  him 
familiar.     Nothing  appeared  new  nor  strange  until 


86  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

he  had  gone  some  little  distance,  when  the  road, 
perfectly  normal  heretofore,  suddenly  ascended  into 
the  sky.  From  this  time  the  real  and  the  unreal 
were  strangely  blended,  growing  more  and  more 
confused,  until  a  lapse  of  consciousness  ensued, 
when  the  physician  found  himself  again  in  the 
body,  with  his  relatives  rejoicing  at  his  apparent 
resuscitation  from  the  dead. 

Now,  if  this  entirely  truthful  account  is  carefully 
studied,  it  will  be  at  once  apparent  that  the  imag- 
ination plays  the  leading  role  in  the  souls  con- 
sciousness after  death.  The  feeble  remains  of  the 
physical  senses  enabled  the  bodiless  soul  to  locate 
itself  physically  for  a  time,  but  were  not  sufli 
to  prevent  the  subjective  visions  of  the  imagination 
being  interjected.  All  of  us  unconsciously  locate 
heaven  above,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  above 
is  never  the  same  direction  for  any  two  succe 
moments.  For  this  reason,  the  physician  uncon- 
sciously to  himself  projected  the  road  in  an  upwind 
direction — pretty  good  evidence,  by-the-way,  that 
his  conscience  was  not  troubled  very  much,  else  it 
would  undoubtedly  have  inclined  to  the  opposite 
angle!  Similarly,  the  clothing  which  appeared  in 
response  to  his  unexpressed  desire  for  it,  shows 
how  quickly  the  imagination  responds  to  our  light- 
est thought.  Out  of  its  depths  all  the  environments 
of  the  naturally  disembodied  soul  appear  as  surely 
and  as  instantaneously  as  when  God  said:  "Let 
there  be  light;  and  there  tvas  light I" 


THE   PROCESS   OF   DEATH  87 

To  each  soul  must  come  differing  experiences 
after  death  because  each  one  will  create  differing 
surroundings  out  of  the  resources  of  his  own  imag- 
ination. The  persistence  of  the  remains  of  the 
senses  will  be  much  greater  in  some  than  in  others. 
The  activity  of  the  imagination  will  be  displayed  in 
a  thousand  ways,  accordingly  as  the  passing  life 
has  given  it  trend  or  bias.  Out  of  its  activities  will 
grow  all  the  heavens  and  all  the  hells  which  the 
soul  ever  experiences  in  post-mortem  conditions. 
And  when  the  imagination  shall  have  become 
wearied,  or  its  stock  of  material  exhausted,  then 
will  come  a  new  rest  and  sleep — only  this  time  the 
Bleep  will  be  that  waking  dream  we  call  earth-life ! 


CHAPTER   XII 
THE    RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE  SOUL 

THE  relation  oi  the  soul  to  the  body  and  to  the 
disembodied  state  can  not  be  adequately  ex- 
plained except  the  fact  of  its  repeated  re- 
embodiment  or  reincarnation  be  accepted.  As  this 
is  an  unfamiliar  belief  in  Western  lands,  it  has  been 
thought  best  by  the  writer  to  condense  the  evidence 
which  demonstrates  it  to  be  a  fact  in  nature,  and 
the  chief  factor  in,  or,  rather,  the  very  process  of, 
evolution,  into  a  brief  chapter  upon  this  subject. 

An  examination  of  the  philosophy  and  fact  of 
reincarnation  demands  the  establishing  of  the 
affirmative  of  the  following  propositions,  viz: 

1st.  That  re-embodiment  is  a  universal  law  in 
every  kingdom  and  upon  every  plane  of  nature, 
and  includes  man  by  virtue  of  his  being  a  part  of 
nature,  distinct  in  but  not  separate  from  the 
Whole. 

2nd.  That  reincarnation  in  man  is  a  specific 
return  of  the  same,  distinct,  individualized  soul  to 
successive  bodies  without  less  of  conscious  iden- 
tity. 

These  two  propositions — the  second  of  which  is 
indeed   but   a   corollary    of    the    first — are    fully 


RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE   SOUL  89 

capable  of  proof  under  the  most  exacting  methods 
of  scientific  procedure.  The  latter  has  been  declared 
by  a  German  philosopher  to  be  only  scientific  when 
all  investigators  can  arrive  at  similar  results  by  re- 
peating the  processes  of  any  alleged  demonstration. 
This  test  Theosophy  fully  accepts  in  its  proof  of 
the  fact  of  reincarnation ;  and  only  demands  that 
the  steps  by  which  it  arrives  at  this  demonstration 
be  repeated  and  not  set  aside  without  proper  exam- 
ination, as  is  too  largely  the  custom  of  so-called 
scientists  of  the  West  when  dealing  with  the  spirit- 
ual aspect  of  nature. 

The  proofs  of  reincarnation,  then,  are  to  be  found 
in  the  law  of  evolution,  of  which  it  is  the  process, 
and  in  the  further  laws  of  the  conservation  of  force 
and  the  indestructibility  of  matter.  Certain  axio- 
matic truths  will  also  be  of  service  if  kept  in 
mind  as  we  proceed,  the  most  important  of 
which  are: 

That  the  lesser  can  not  contain  the  greater. 

That  the  widening  of  a  conscious  area  is  the  ex- 
act equivalent  of  a  physical  or  mathematical  addi- 
tion upon  lower  planes. 

That  any  law  in  nature  must  of  necessity  be  uni- 
versal. 

In  illustration  of  this  last  truth  of  the  necessary 
universality  of  law,  a  moment's  digression  may  be 
permitted  in  order  to  show  why  any  law  whatever 
which  obtains  in  any  kingdom  of  nature  must  be 
an  universal  law.     This  is  easily  accomplished,  for 


90  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

if  it  be  not  universal  then  it  would  conflict  with 
some  superior  law,  and  cease  to  exist.  And  two 
conflicting  or  opposing  forces  can  not  be  present  in 
the  cosmos,  however  much  the  universal  pairs  of 
opposites  would  seem  to  imply  this,  for  either  they 
must  be  equal  or  unequal.  If  equal,  then  nature 
would  rest  throughout  eternity  upon  an  infinite 
dead  center,  each  force  would  exactly  neutralize  the 
Other  and  no  progression  nor  evolution  be  possible. 
If  unequal,  then  in  the  eternities  of  the  past  the 
greater  must  have  overcome  the  lesser,  and  it  would 
have  become  practically  and  actually  non-existent. 
So  that  one  single  instance  of  reincarnation  or  re- 
clothing  in  matter  of  the  inner,  spiritual  essence 
establishes  the  universality  of  the  process,  even  if 
it  seems  to  elude  our  discovery  as  a  potency  in  ac- 
tion upon  all  plains  of  the  cosmos.  Theosophy 
claims  as  a  fact  that  the  law  of  re-embodiment  ifl  an 
actual  and  potent  factor  in  every  process  in  the 
cosmos,  but  that  the  cycles  required  to  complete  its 
vaster  operations  are  so  immense  that  the  small 
portion  of  their  arcs  which  one  brief  life  subtends 
is  so  minute  that  we  are  unable  to  perceive  that  it 
is  a  portion  of  a  tremendous  spiral,  and  not  the 
straight  line  we  have  imagined.  It  is  to  such  im- 
mense cycles  that  we  must  assign  the  re-embodiment 
or  re-birth  of  stars  and  worlds ;  the  sufficient  proof 
of  which  is  in  the  fact  that  upon  lower  planes  we 
have  discovered  the  action  of  this  foice  or  mode  of 
motion  which  must  of  necessity  be  universal,  and 


RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE   SOUL  91 

so  by  correspondence  and  analogy  we  apply  the 
law  in  these  higher  instances. 

In  the  demonstration  of  the  first  postulate,  that 
reincarnation  is  universal  throughout  nature,  the 
law  of  the  conservation  of  force  will  be  first  exam- 
ined, after  which  appeal  will  be  had  to  the  facts  of 
evolution.  At  the  very  outset  certain  self-evi- 
dent generalizations  under  these  laws  of  evolution 
and  force  conservation  must  be  briefly  defined. 
These  are : 

That  evolution  is  continuously  displacing  the 
threshold  of  consciousness  in  man  and  in  nature, 
and  thus  compelling  the  constant  widening  of  the 
conscious  area  of  every  entity  in  nature. 

That  this  continuous  addition  to  conscious  ex- 
periences, and  the  infinite  variation  of  conscious 
states,  necessitates  the  ultimate  individualization 
of  conscious  centers  of  force,  or  units  of  conscious- 
ness, moving  in  orbits  or  along  lines  pre-deter- 
mined  by  the  coloring  and  limitations  arising  out 
of  past  conscious  association. 

That  as  a  result  of  this  individualization  of  such 
conscious  centers  within  the  whole,  atoms,  elements, 
and  molecules  are  continuously  being  correlated  in 
higher  forms  of  matter  by  conscious  entities  seek- 
ing higher  expressions  of  cc  sciousness  under  the 
stress  of  evolutionary  neces&i  ^'es.  And,  lastly, 
which  brings  us  logically  and  legitimately  to  our 
second  basic  postulate : 

That  the  human  soul  has  been  thus  individual- 


92  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

ized,  without  having  been  separated  from  the  whole 
of  nature,  and  as  a  consequence  reincarnates  in 
successive  bodies  as  a  distinct,  individualized,  self- 
conscious  center  of  consciousness,  or  soul. 

Taking  up  the  examination  of  the  first  general- 
ization, it  is  evident  that  in  its  correlation  of  force 
and  conservation  of  energy,  modern  science  lias, 
unwittingly  perhaps,  laid  the  foundations  upon 
which  the  structure  of  universal,  cyclic  reincarna- 
tion may  be  safely  and  even  scientifically  reared. 
For  what  is  force?  Science  is  dumb,  except  to  de- 
fine it  as  anything  which  changes  the  relation  l>e- 
tween  atoms,  molecules,  and  objects.  Farther  than 
it  refuses  to  go,  although  in  the  assertion  that 
it  is  eternally  conserved,  it  advances  it  to  the  dig- 
nity of  an  entity;  for,  if  force  had  no  real  being, 
then  it  would  be  impossible  for  it  to  be  conserved. 
It  is  an  aspect  entity,  as  Theosophy  defines  it ;  or, 
in  other  words,  it  is  one  side  of  the  manifested  tri- 
angle behind  whose  veil  the  Absolute  lies  eternally 
concealed.  Matter,  force  and  consciousness  are  in- 
separable and  co-eternal,  and  one  can  not  be 
thought  of  as  existing  apart  from  the  other  two. 
Matter  affords  the  vehicle;  force  (motion),  the 
means ;  and  consciousness,  the  directing  intelligence 
for  every  conceivable  manifestation  in  the  universe. 
Force  must  have  a  material  vehicle  or  basis,  and  as 
it  cannot  be  dissociated  from  this,  if  it  be  con- 
served, then  its  material  basis  is  conserved,  as  must 
also   be   the  associated   intelligence  which  directs 


RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE   SOUL  93 

its  action.  Until  scientists  can  show  pure  force  un- 
associated  with  matter  and  exhibiting  no  phase  of 
intelligence,  their  proof  that  it  is  conserved  carries 
with  it  the  farther  proof  that  its  material  base  and 
guiding  consciousness  are  also  conserved.  Science 
admits  matter  to  be,  like  force,  indestructible,  yet, 
by  the  strangest  inconsistency,  it  denies  the  perma- 
nency of  the  one  element,  intelligence,  which  alone 
renders  possible  the  orderly  sequence  exhibited  in 
the  manifestations  of  its  two  admittedly  indestruc- 
tible elements. 

The  failure  of  modern  science  to  recognize  this 
universal  reincarnation  in  nature  arises  from  its 
faulty  conception  of  the  basic  principles  underly- 
ing the  phenomenal  universe.  Refusing  to  recog- 
nize the  absolute  one-ness  in  origin  of  everything 
in  the  universe,  whether  force,  matter  or  conscious- 
ness, Western  scientists  can  not  bring  themselves 
to  apply  the  laws  obtaining  upon  the  physi- 
cal plane  to  psychic  and  spiritual  realms.  They 
can  very  well  see  that  force  can  not  escape  the 
grasp  of  the  All-container,  space,  and  recognize 
that  matter,  too,  is  limited  by  the  same  inexorable 
bounds;  but  consciousness,  the  superior  and  ruler 
of  the  other  two,  is  most  absurdly  and  illogically 
conceived  of  as  capable  of  annihilation.  It  is  true 
that  this  dilemma  is  sought  to  be  avoided  by  claim- 
ing that  consciousness  is  only  a  property  of  matter, 
manifested  because  of  certain,  they  would  have  us 
believe,   entirely   fortuitous  combinations   of  force 


94  THE   EVIDENCE  OF    IMMORTALITY 

and  matter.  But  this  claim  is  a  purely  gratuitous 
assumption.  The  idealists,  who  look  upon  matter 
as  a  property  or  product  of  consciousness,  have 
even  a  better  warrant  for  their  position. 

The  claim  will  not  stand.  When  science  shall 
have  presented  us  with  matter  free  from  conscious- 
ness; unable  to  assert  a  determining  choice,  if 
resolved  into  its  chemical  elements  and  placed  in 
the  presence  of  other  similarly  situated  elements, 
its  property  plea  will  be  entitled  to  consideration; 
until  then,  the  counter-claim  that  matter  is  a  prop- 
erty of  consciousness  is  equally  valid.  Therefore, 
in  this  inquiry,  reincarnation  will  be  proven  by 
facts  and  phenomena  capable  of  scientific  observa- 
tion and  classification  only;  scientific  deductions 
therefrom  being  set  aside  as  incomplete  and  incapa- 
ble of  that  universal  generalization  and  application 
which  Theosophy  demands  as  a  sine  qua  non  of  any 
and  all  laws  in  the  universe.  For,  as  stated,  if 
matter  is  indestructible,  then  the  material  ba- 
the soul  is  indestructible;  if  force  is  eternal  in  its 
action,  this  includes  intellectual  and  spiritual  or 
soul  force,  and  hence  the  necessary  preservation  oi 
the  conscious  factor  in  all  its  essential  integrity  as 
an  element  upon  which  the  intelligent  action  of 
both  matter  and  force  depends. 

Therefore,  to  establish  the  universality  of  rein- 
carnation in  nature,  it  is  sufficient  for  the  present, 
to  rest  upon  the  accepted  fact  that  force  is  con- 
served; that  it  but  abandons  one  material  guise  to 


RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE   SOUL  95 

reappear  in  another.  Let  us  follow  it  for  a  time  in 
its  conservations  and  correlations  and  see  if,  before 
we  proceed  far,  it  does  not  prove  to  be  something 
more  than  mere  force,  and  thus  establish  as  a  cor- 
ollary the  further  truth  that  this  process  results  in 
the  necessary  evolution  of  individualized  centers  of 
conscious  force,  or  souls. 

At  its  every  turn  we  perceive  this  empty  abstrac- 
tion— this  mere  "matter  in  motion" — exercising 
choice  as  to  its  modes  of  motion.  Atoms  will  only 
combine  with  other  atoms  in  certain  definite  pro- 
portions. They  cannot  be  made  to  exercise  an  in- 
discriminate selection  and  combination,  such  as 
would  be  their  only  method  if  force  were  the  non- 
intelligent  non-entity  science  would  have  us  believe. 
So  with  molecular  associations ;  they  must  have  se- 
lective choice,  or  the  combination  perishes.  Man 
can  as  easily  fill  his  lungs  with  nitrogen  alone  as 
with  a  mixture  of  this  and  oxygen,  yet,  in  the 
former  case,  would  perish  almost  instantly  because 
of  the  impossibility  of  atomic  interchange  taking 
place.  All  such  refusals  of  atoms  to  enter  into 
combinations,  when  there  is  no  other  reason  than 
non-amnity,  show  that  there  has  already  been  such 
a  divergence  through  former  conscious  experiences 
among  the  atoms  that  each  seeks  the  line  of  its  en- 
gendered affinities  with  an  almost  irresistible  ten- 
dency. This  shows  the  absolute  truth  of  the  asser- 
tion—in reality  an  axiom —  that  the  laws  of  nature 
are  universal,  and  that  the  addition  of   conscious- 


96  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

ness  through  additional  experiences  is  just  as  truly 
an  addition  in  magnitude  as  is  the  adding  of  one 
material  molecule  to  another.  By  the  latter  pn 
the  physical  magnitude  is  increased,  rendering  a 
double  amount  of  Bpaoe  necessary,  under  the  law 
that  two  bodies  can  not  occupy  the  same  space  at 
the  same  time;  by  the  former,  the  conscious  area  is 
widened,  and  can  never  be  compressed  back  into 
the  old  limits  any  more  than  can  the  oak  be  com- 
pressed again  within  the  limits  of  the  acorn  in 
which  it  had  its  physical  origin,  and  this  under 
the  law  that  the  lesser  can  not  contain  the  greater. 
It  is  plain  that,  under  this  law,  consciousness  which 
has  impressed  upon  it  the  vegetable  stamp,  can 
never  N  -enter  the  mineral  kingdom  ;  it  lias  widened 
its  area   beyond    the  limits  capable  of  finding 

-ion  in  that  kingdom.  Similarly  conscious 
centers  of  force  which  have  readied  the  animal  can 
not  again  re-enter  the  vegetable  plane,  nor  can  hu- 
man consciousness  ever  again  function  in  the  ani- 
mal kingdom.  All  of  these  facts,  depend,  primar- 
ily, upon  the  law  that  the  lesser  can  not  contain 
the  greater,  and,  secondarily,  upon  the  necessity 
of  law  upon  one  plane  obtaining  upon  all  the 
planes  of  the  cosmos.  Human  consciousness  added 
to  animal  consciousness  is  as  veritable  an  addition 
as  that  2+2=4. 

If  the  law  be  thus  general  in  its  application  it  is 
also  particular,  for  the  whole  is  composed  of  its 
I -arts.     So  that  a  center  of  conscious  force  by  con- 


RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE   SOUL  97 

tinual  addition  to  its  experience  in  different  species 
of  the  vegetable  kingdom  would  slowly  but  surely 
eliminate  its  possibilities  of  choice  until  it  would 
be  driven,  by  the  final  impossibility  of  finding  a 
suitable  vehicle  in  this  kingdom,  to  seek  an  avenue 
for  its  widening  intelligence  in  a  higher  one,  or,  in 
this  instance,  the  animal  kingdom.  Here  the  same 
cumulative  widening  of  consciousness  would  in  the 
course  of  ages  of  successive  incarnations  tend  to 
bring  these  conscious  centers  to  the  same  condi- 
tion ;  and,  indeed,  we  are  told  in  the  Secret  Doc- 
trine that  some  of  the  higher  animals  have  almost 
reached  the  plane  of  definitely  individualized  mo- 
nads—  in  other  words,  the  lower  margin  of  the 
human  plane. 

This  inevitable  widening  of  conscious  area  and 
consequent  individualization  of  conscious  centers, 
being  plainly  the  necessary  corollary  of  the  con- 
servation of  conscious  force  acting  in  harmony 
with  and,  indeed,  guiding  evolution,  it  will  be  evi- 
dent that  as  a  result  of  this  individualization  the 
simpler  elements  as  well  as  atoms  and  molecules 
are  of  necessity  continuously  built  up  and  synthe- 
sized into  higher  forms  in  order  to  afford  expres- 
sion in  form  for  conscious  entities  too  far  progressed 
to  longer  use  these  lower  substances.  A  conception 
of  this  truth  will  go  far  to  elucidate  the  mysterious 
relation  our  own  souls  bear  to  our  bodies. 

The  proof  of  the  synthesizing  of  lower  entities  by 
those  higher  rests  upon  the  axiomatic  proposition 


98  THE   EVIDENCE  OF   IMMORTALITY 

tli at  the  lesser  can  not  contain  the  greater.  Hence, 
if  evolution  is  to  proceed  at  all,  its  easiest  and,  in- 
deed necessary,  method  is  for  more  advanced  en- 
tities to  take  lower  forms  of  matter  and,  without 
annuling,  superceding,  or  even  disturbing  the  con- 
sciousness of  entities  finding  in  such  lower  forms 
their  normal  expression,  to  build  up  therefrom  suit- 
able vehicles  for  their  own  higher  need.  And  while 
so  occupying  forms  composed  of  hosts,  it  may  be, 
of  lower  entities,  which  they  thus  in  no  way  dis- 
tort), the  association  must  he  helpful  to  the  lower 
lives,  for  it  .necessarily  infuses  into  their  essence  a 
faint  emanation  from  that  of  the  higher  synthesiz- 
ing entity.  Because  of  this  bestowing  of  their  own 
purer  and  more  spiritual  essence — which  is  also  an 
universal  law  upon  every  plane  of  the  cosmos  —  it 
is  said  in  the  Secret  Doctrine*  that  "Compassion  is 
an  attribute  of  the  very  Absolute  itself.' ' 

This  synthesizing  of  matter  occupied  by  less 
progressed  entities  into  composite  bodies  suited  f<»r 
the  use  of  those  higher,  constitutes,  together  with 
the  fact  of  their  repeated  reincarnation  in  such  syn- 
thesized forms,  the  complete  key  to,  and  the  very 
process  of,  evolution,  as  stated  at  the  outset.  That 
it  is  conscious  entities  which  thus  correlate  lower 
into  higher  forms,  is  proven  by  the  very  fact  of  any 
form  in  any  kingdom  of  nature  being  repeated  at 
all.     For  if  not  so,  then  every  new  production  of 

*"The  Secret  Doctrine:  the  synthesis  of  Science,  Relisrion,  and 
Philosophy,''  by  H.  I*.  Blavatsky:  New  York  and  London:  1893. 


RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE   SOUL  99 

crystal,  plant  or  animal,  would  be  practically  a  new 
and  perfectly  fortuitous  combination  or  creation  of 
form,  and  all  method,  or  necessity  for  method, 
would  disappear  from  nature.  There  is  no  possible 
reason,  except  as  the  work  of  an  intelligent,  con- 
scious (not  necessarily  self-conscious)  entity  for 
the  repetition  of  form  and  the  preservation  of 
Bpecies.  And  variation  in  form  and  ultimate  ex- 
tinction of  species  only  mark  the  gradual  expan- 
sion of  consciousness  forcing  the  evolution  of 
higher  types.  The  agents  of  it  all  in  the  three 
lower  kingdoms  are  the  elementals,  or  nature  spir- 
its, from  those  ensouled  in  the  tiny  moss  upon  its 
bark  to  the  single,  mighty  one  which  builds  and  in- 
forms the  giant  oak. 

Each  is  an  entity;  each  on  the  road  to  ulti- 
mate individualization  and  self-consciousness,  and 
each  at  a  point  where  it  has  left  those  relatively 
lower  eternally  behind  it  in  the  scale  of  becoming. 
The  lesser  can  never  contain  the  greater.  Nor  can 
any  one  cell  in  the  oak  or  in  the  man  be  shown  to 
be  so  much  superior  to  the  others  that  in  it  lies  the 
synthesizing  power.  There  is  absolutely  required  a 
synthesizer.  In  man,  this  is  a  self-conscious  cen- 
ter, or  soul;  in  the  plants  and  animals,  a  sub- 
conscious center,  or  elemental. 

In  the  manifested  cosmos  there  can  be  no  excep- 
tion to  this  universal  law  of  the  synthesis  of  lower 
by  higher  entities.  Worlds  are  but  the  garments 
of  their  chief  rectors — garments  composed  of  myr- 


100  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

iads  of  lower  elemental  hosts.  Men  are  but  units 
in  a  thinking  body  which  we  term  humanity,  and 
which,  by  all  the  laws  of  analogy,  is  synthesized  in 
some  grand,  incomprehensible  (to  us)  Hierarchial 
whole.  That  we  do  not' realize  this  consciously,  is 
because  our  consciousness  is  upon  a  plane  s<>  far  be- 
neath that  of  the  synthesizing  host;  just  as  the 
cells  of  our  body,  although  so  plainly  an  organism 
to  our  consciousness,  are  unable  to  comprehend  that 
they  are  such  an  organism, or  to  conceive  of  the  in- 
telligence which  can  use  and  direct  a  complex 
whole,  formed  of  such  countless  and  diverse  units. 
It  may  be  claimed  that  as  all  organisms  develop 
from  a  germ  or  seed,  herein  is  to  be  found 
the  reason  for  the  exact  reproduction  of  form  and 
conscious  function.  But  this  is  one  of  those  half- 
truths;  dangerous  because  it  is  half  true.  The 
seed  only  furnishes  the  material  element  and  basis 
for  the  reincarnating  elemental  or  soul.  And  hav- 
ing within  it  of  necessity  certain  cells  which  have 
never  died  since  the  first  appearance  of  organic  life 
upon  this  planet,  these  cells  have  the  impress  of 
previous  form-associations  upon  them,  and  h« 
when  they  are  again  revivified,  the  line  of  least  re- 
sistance for  the  returning  entity  would  be  in  the  di- 
rection of,  or  tendency  toward,  the  reproduction  of 
the  old  form.  But  if  this  were  the  sole  source  of 
the  reproduction  of  specific  forms,  then  variation 
would  be  impossible.  Exact  reproduction  of  that 
form  preserved  in  the  records  of  the  seed  would  be 


RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE   SOUL  101 

inevitable,  whereas  variation  is  as  much  a  law  and 
a  necessity  in  evolution  as  is  its  opposite.  To  ac- 
count for  variation  there  must  enter  the  higher 
conscious  factor,  exactly  as  the  same  factor  must 
be  postulated  in  the  production  of  the  very  first 
cell  or  plant,  which  originated  of  necessity  without 
the  aid  of  any  material  seed.  Sir  William  Thomp- 
son's hypothesis  of  seeds  having  been  brought  to 
the  earth  by  some  comet  only  removes  the  materi- 
alistic enigma  to  still  more  difficult  grounds;  it 
does  not  solve  it.  It  were  wiser  and  infinitely  more 
logical  for  all  materialists  to  admit,  with  Haeckel, 
Huxley,  Bain,  and  others,  the  fact  of  spontaneous 
generation,  and  face  the  problems  involved  in  this 
fairly.  Their  unwillingness  to  do  so  is  easily  ex- 
plained, for,  if  admitted,  it  will  be  apparent  that 
the  conscious  or  spiritual  factor  must  be  recognized 
as  at  the  base  of  any  and  all  spontaneous  genera- 
tion and  evolution  of  form.  Blind  force  taking  the 
direction  of  the  least  resistance  will  not  stand  the 
light  of  logical  analysis,  for  it  neither  could  nor 
would  take  this  direction  were  it  blind.  The  power 
to  recognize  the  line  of  least  resistance  is  a  con- 
scious one,  and  never  was  nor  can  be  exercised  un- 
consciously or  blindly. 

It  is  thus  seen  how  completely  the  law  of  the  con- 
servation of  force — necessarily  conscious,  though 
not  necessarily  se(f-conscious — and  the  facts  of 
evolution  establish  the  truth  of  reincarnation  as  an 
universal  process  in  nature;   and  that  the  ebbing 


102  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

and  flowing  of  force  includes  also  the  ebbing  and 
flowing  of  consciousness,  and  explains  the  orderly 
appearance  of  an  universe  out  of  apparent  noth- 
ingness. For  that  which  appears  to  us  as  non- 
being  is  but  the  subjective  arc  of  Being  which 
equally  with  its  objective  arc  is  included  in  the 
complete  circle  and  cycle  of  reincarnation.  By  the 
latter  is  also  explained  the  appearance  of  any  type 
of  form-building  by  entities  upon  any  plane  of  be- 
ing, whether  that  type  be  the  ponderous  mass  of 
the  elephant  or  the  humble  vestment  of  a  lichen. 
For  the  spontaneous  generation  of  the  materialist 
is  but  the  returning  entity  building  for  itself  the 
form  necessary  for  the  objective  arc  of  its  exist- 
ence. Recognizing  this,  the  seeming  mysteries  of 
both  birth  and  death  stand  unveiled.  They  are  but 
the  objective  and  subjective  arcs  of  the  One  Life, 
as  expressed  in  the  countless  crores  of  (seemingly) 
separate  existences. 

The  truth  of  the  first  postulate  being  thus  un- 
equivocally established,  it  only  remains  to  examine 
the  second,  which  is,  that  the  human  soul,  thus  in- 
dividualized, does  reincarnate  in  successive  bodies 
as  a  distinct,  self-conscious  center  of  conscious- 
ness. 

It  has  already  been  shown  that  the  process  of  in- 
dividualizing centers  of  consciousness  begins  at  the 
very  dawn  of  differentiation  ;  that  every  experience 
in  matter  imposes  a  widening  of  conscious  area  and 
limitations  as  to  the  choice  of    material  vehicles, 


RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE  SOUL  103 

which  gradually  force  not  only  a  farther  differen- 
tiation in  its  own  kingdom  but  also  compels  the  in- 
dividualized entity  to  at  length  seek  a  higher  one. 
Therefore,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  in  man 
alone  there  is  specific  reincarnation.  Nature  never 
leaps.  The  centers  of  consciousness,  or  elemental 
souls,  in  all  the  kingdoms  below  the  human  must 
reincarnate ;  that  is,  each  specific  repetition  of  form 
in  any  kingdom  is  the  reincarnation  of  an  ele- 
mental center  of  consciousness  which  has  received 
this  definite  stamp  as  the  result  of  conscious  expe- 
riences in  its  evolutionary  past.  Such  centers  do 
not  have  subjective  cycles  of  the  same  nature  as  the 
human  soul  because  they  are  below  the  plane  of 
self-consciousness.  Therefore,  their  subjective  arcs 
are  passed  in  latency  — a  bare  potentiality  of  again 
manifesting  the  same  form  when  their  subjective 
arc  is  completed  and  environing  conditions  per- 
mit. That  there  is  an  actual  re-clothing  of  the  same 
entity,  is  proven  by  the  repetition  of  the  exact  form, 
leafage  and  flowering  of  plants  from  roots,  rhi- 
zomas  or  bulbs,  for  here  the  entity  has  plainly 
never  abandoned  its  hold  upon  the  material  plane. 
So  that  when  we  speak  of  the  reproduction  of  a 
plant  from  a  dried,  withered  bulb  as  a  growth,  we 
are  but  hiding  our  ignorance  of  what  has  actually 
occurred  behind  technical  phraseology.  The  plant 
has  not  been  dead ;  it  has  been  living  in  this  bulb, 
which  gave  no  evidence  of  its  presence,  the  subjec- 
tive arc  of  its  life  cycle. 


104  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

Similarly,  in  the  metamorphosis  of  insects,  a 
caterpillar,  for  instance,  passes  through  a  complete 
cycle  of  subjectivity  to  re-emerge  as  the  same  en- 
tity clothed  in  the  same  physical  molecules — these 
having  never  been  dispersed — but  with  entirely 
different  form,  functions  and  habits.  If  the  inner, 
elemental  force  can  bring  about  so  complete  and 
wonderful  a  change  without  abandoning  the  old 
material,  it  is  sheer  unreason  not  to  recognize  that, 
when  the  butterfly  existence  is  ended,  the  same 
entity  is  amply  able  to  rebuild  the  old  caterpillar 
form  from  an  egg  after  the  close  of  the  subjective 
arc  between  the  butterfly  and  caterpillar  stages. 

If,  therefore,  we  find  that  throughout  all  the 
kingdoms  below  man  there  is  a  plain  leading  up  to 
and  preparation  for  self-conscious  reincarnation; 
that  the  self-conscious  subjective  arcs  in  the  human 
kingdom  are  a  natural  sequence  and  corollary  of 
sub-conscious  or  latent  arcs  in  the  lower  ones ;  and 
further,  that  reincarnation  is  the  process  of  evo- 
lution, we  may  assume  this  as  a  reasonable 
working  hypothesis  in  explanation  of  the  phenom- 
ena of  human  existence.  And,  logically,  if  we 
show  the  absolute  necessity  for  the  presence  of  a 
certain  law  in  the  cosmos  in  order  to  rationalize 
otherwise  inexplicable  phenomena,  we  prove  the 
existence  [of  that  law,  although  we  may  not  fully 
comprehend  its  real  nature  nor  mode  of  operation. 
Thus,  ether  has  never  been  demonstrated  other  than 
by  the  necessity  for  such  a  medium  in  order  to  ex- 


RE-EMBODIMENT   OF  THE   SOUL  105 

plain  certain  natural  phenomena,  yet  no  one  doubts 
nor  disputes  its  existence.  Similarly,  if,  as  has  been 
pointed  out,  we  find  that  every  process  in  nature 
tends  toward  and  leads  up  to  the  rebirth  of  indiv- 
idualized human  souls,  we  have  a  scientific  right  to 
assume  that  rebirth  or  reincarnation  is  a  natural 
and  therefore  universal  law.  And  if  we  further 
find  that  in  the  human  kingdom  itself  there  are 
numerous  phenomena  which  can  only  be  explained 
by  such  a  law,  its  existence  passes  into  the  domain 
of  certitude  and  exact  knowledge ;  while  if  we  still 
further  find  that  the  very  highest  and  most  philo- 
sophic conceptions  of  life  and  of  the  universe  re- 
quire it ;  if  the  grandest  generalizations  of  modern 
science,  the  conservation  of  force,  the  indestructi- 
bility of  matter,  and  the  process  of  evolution,  de- 
mand it,  we  shall  be  but  blind  followers,  not  lead- 
ers, of  the  blind,  if  we  do  not  accept  the  divine 
truth  which  it  reveals. 

A  brief  examination  of  some  of  these  phenomena, 
as  well  as  philosophic  categories,  which  require  re- 
incarnation in  order  to  explain  them,  will  consti- 
tute the  remaining  portion  of  this  chapter. 

All  of  the  higher  mental,  psyhic  and  spiritual 
phenomena  are  utterly  unexplained  except  by  re- 
incarnation. Among  these  we  may  note  the  sud- 
den appearance  of  a  genius  in  an  entirely  mediocre 
family;  a  Shakespeare,,  rising  out  of  the  muddy 
stream  of  a  Warwickshire  tenant-farming  and 
petty-trading  family.     Then  will  appear  a  mathe- 


106  THE   EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

matical  prodigy,  such  as  Zera  Colburn  among  Mis- 
souri clodhoppers ;  a  musical  wonder,  a  blind  Tom, 
out  of  ignorant,  slave  parentage;  a  Napoleon,  bred 
from  a  camp  follower,  and  so  on,  ad  infinitum.  No 
possible  theory  limited  by  one  life  can  explain 
these.  But  if  we  recognize  reincarnation  we  at  once 
see  that  each  instance  is  but  the  pursuing  of  a  lino 
of  development  by  an  ego  who  has  already  brought 
this  particular  line  to  a  wonderful  perfection  in 
preceding  lives.  And  the  obverse  of  these  instances 
is  equally  explainable  by  reincarnation.  Mental 
inferiority;  stupid  sons  of  wise  or  illustrious  par- 
ents, are  impossible  to  account  for  under  the  law 
of  physical  heredity,  to  which,  of  course,  false 
science  would  relegate  them.  True  science  con- 
fesses its  inability,  except  to  vaguely  conjecture 
that  atavism  may  be  the  agent.  But  atavism  iteeli 
can  not  be  explained  except  by  reincarnation. 
Under  physical  law,  any  force  must  diminish  ac- 
cording to  definite  ratios  when  disconnected  with 
its  original  impulse,  and  atavism  plainly  flit 
the  face  of  this  law,  if  it  be  a  reversion  to  a  remote 
ancestor.  Reincarnation  shows  that  atavism  is  but 
a  soul  returning  with  tendencies  so  strongly  im- 
pressed upon  the  eternal  cell  (transmitted  from 
parent  to  offspring  physically)  by  some  remote  an- 
cestor that  this  ancestor  is  copied  rather  than  the 
nearer  ones.  Many  of  these  cases  of  atavism,  es- 
pecially in  this  selfish  age  of  violence,  may  be  the 
actual  return  of  the  same   ego,  in  which  case  the 


RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE   SOUL  107 

tendency  to  reproduce  the  old  form  and  traits 
would  be  almost  irresistible. 

And  if  we  enter  the  domain  of  logic  and  philoso- 
phy, we  are,  if  possible,  in  still  greater  perplexity 
unless  we  accept  reincarnation.  Immortality  posi- 
tively demands  it ;  justice  absolutely  requires  it. 
The  inequalities  of  birth,  of  racial,  national  and 
social  environments,  represent  a  chaos  of  injustice 
unless  explained  by  it.  Even  if  we  were  to  accept 
the  theory  of  physical  heredity  as  accounting  for 
one  child  having  a  vicious  and  another  a  lovable 
disposition,  one  a  highly  intellectual,  and  another 
a  stupid,  animal  nature,  we  are  still  unable  to  ac- 
count for  the  terrible  injustice  which  sends  one  soul 
to  vicious,  another  to  virtuous  parents ;  one  to  cul- 
tured Aryans,  another  to  African  Bushmen,  with- 
out the  unfortunate  or  fortunate  souls  having  any 
choice  in  the  matter.  Either  we  must  accept  the 
reincarnation  of  souls  who  have  lived  such  lives  as 
have  unavoidably  attracted  them,  under  the  law  of 
cause  and  effect,  to  the  black  or  the  white,  the  vir- 
tuous or  the  vicious  parents,  or  we  must  admit  that 
the  universe  is  but  a  chapter  of  accidents ;  or,  if 
designed  and  controlled  by  a  god,  then  that  god 
must  be  at  heart  a  careless,  indifferent  monster. 

There  are  absolutely  no  two  individuals  in  the 
world  whose  social  station,  character,  and  intellect- 
ual capacities  have  been  the  same  from  birth.  This 
inequality,  thus  attending  the  very  entrance  of  the 
soul  upon  this  sphere  of  action,  must  be  justly  and 


108  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

logically  accounted  for  by  any  religion  or  philoso- 
phy before  the  latter  is  entitled  to  the  slightest 
consideration  or  respect.  It  is  in  their  foolish  and 
puerile  attempts  to  account  for  original  sin,  and  the 
presence  of  evil  as  a  most  patent  and  potent  factor 
in  the  world,  that  all  one-birth  religious  and  phil- 
osophic theories  break  hopelessly  down.  But  if  we 
recognize  in  the  soul  a  pilgrim  through  the  great 
Cycle  of  Necessity,  starting  pure  but  undeveloped, 
and  having  to  develope  all  its  powers  and  faculties 
through  use  alone,  we  have  at  once  in  our  hands 
the  thread  of  Ariadne ;  the  clue  which  shall  guide 
us  safely  out  of  the  labyrinths  of  evil  in  which  we 
have  become  entangled  during  our  endeavors  to  slay 
the  monster,  ignorance.  For  a  perfect  knowledge  of 
earth-states  requires  that  each  man  undergo  <•• 
possible  experience;  subdue  every  variety  of  hu- 
man passion;  resist  every  form  of  temptation 
whether  of  the  physical,  emotional  or  intellectual. 
Only  by  reincarnation  is  it  possible  to  do  this;  to 
round  out  and  develope  patience,  fortitude,  pity, 
charity,  benevolence,  and  a  host  of  god-like  attri- 
butes ;  all  of  which  have  to  be  refined  out  of  the 
crucible  of  actual  experience  and  suffering.  One 
life  is  all  too  short  for  the  lessons  of  sympathy  and 
love  we  have  to  learn,  ere  we  develop  compassion 
for  the  woes  of  others  from  the  fires  of  our  own 
purification,  from  the  ashes  of  our  sacrificed  pas- 
sions. 

But  reincarnation  affords  ample  opportunity  for 


RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE  SOUL  109 

even  infinite  progression,  and  contemplates  man  as 
eventually  becoming  a  god  compared  to  his  present 
position  and  powers,  while  before  him  still  lie  vis- 
tas, eternal,  indescribable,  incomprehensible ! 

Yet  it  is  not  by  soaring  into  dreamy  conjectures 
of  the  future  that  this  philosophy  finds  its  highest 
usefulness,  but  rather  because  it  solves  the  present, 
every-day  problems  of  life.  It  removes  all  injus- 
tice, all  chance  and  all  accident  from  every  human 
environment.  Acting  under  the  universal  law  of 
cause  and  effect  it  determines  inexorably  every  cir- 
cumstance that  foolish  philosophers  and  more  fool- 
ish theologians  call  the  accidents  of  birth.  As  has 
been  stated,  a  soul  is  born  to  vicious  or  virtuous 
parents,  to  black  or  white  ones,  with  capacities 
which  cause  it  to  become  wise  or  foolish,  rich  or 
poor,  through  endless  diversities  of  circumstance 
and  seeming  accident,  because  it  has  created  in 
former  lives  that  character  which  causes  it  to  seek 
race,  nation,  and  parent,  under  the  law  of  cause 
and  effect,  as  surely  as  atoms  of  oxygen  and  hydro- 
gen seek  each  other  in  the  crucibles  of  nature  to 
form  water.  The  law  is  absolute ;  like  is  attracted 
to  like;  similar  causes  produce  similar  results. 
Even  the  very  diseases  of  men  are  karmic  inherit- 
ances through  reincarnation  by  means  of  diseased 
parents  having  presented  the  line  of  least  resist- 
ance or  greatest  attraction.  The  insane,  the  epi- 
leptic, the  hunchback,  the  consumptive,  would  not 
— could  not—  come  to  parents  having  these  taints 


110  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

in  their  blood  had  they  not  deserved  to  be  bom 
under  such  conditions  by  acts  done  and  tendencies 
originated  in  former  lives.  There  is  no  chance; 
there  is  no  chaos ;  above  all,  there  is  no  revengeful 
Deity  controlling  man's  circumstances  or  destiny 
and  "cursing  him  even  unto  the  fifth  generation. " 
Man  is  his  own  arbiter,  judge,  executioner.  Under 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect — to  which  men  and 
gods  alike  must  bow  —  he  works  out  his  own  sal- 
vation or  perdition.  Every  act,  thought  or  word 
is  a  cause  which  modifies  his  nature  to  some  ex- 
tent and,  taken  together,  form  that  character  and 
those  affinities  which  determine  absolutely,  without 
the  possibility  of  interference,  his  every  position 
and  power  in  his  next  life.  No  cruel  fate  nor  blind 
chance  has  been  the  slightest  factor  in  the  produc- 
tion of  any  evil  or  any  blessing  which  now  makes 
earth  a  heaven  or  hell  to  him, 

How  can  any  one-birth  theory,  from  the  stand- 
point of  justice,  account  for  those  born  diseased, 
blind,  deformed,  idiotic?  Such  theories  offer  only 
chance,  or  the  whim  of  some  imaginary  god,  in 
explanation  of  these  seeming  injustices.  The  mind 
revolts  against  such  puerile  absurdity.  If  chance 
can  rule  in  one  single  instance,  then  the  universe  is 
all  chance,  and  he  who  can  get  the  better  of  his 
brother  by  robbery,  or  even  murder,  is  amply  justi- 
fied, for  we  are  then  but  cattle  driven  helplessly  to 
the  slaughter.  But,  realizing  that  we  have  lived  on 
this  earth  in  the  past,  and  shall  do  so  in  the  future, 


RE-EMBODIMENT  OF  THE   SOUL  HI 

with  every  life  controlled  by  the  acts  of  former  ones, 
even  selfishness  prompts  us  to  pursue  a  line  of  con- 
duct which  shall  send  us  into  pleasant  and  happy 
environments  in  future  incarnations. 

Yet,  as  reincarnation  teaches  the  truth  that  we 
are  absolutely  dependent  upon  the  function  of  par- 
entage for  our  ability  to  return  here  when  this  be- 
comes inevitable  under  the  law,  it  is  at  once  appar- 
ent how  intimate  is  the  bond  which  unites  ail  souls 
in  a  common  brotherhood.  One  can  not  soar  away 
from  the  rest;  he  must  use  a  body  furnished  by 
physical  parents,  and  the  wisest  and  most  evolved 
soul  will  find  his  wings  crippled,  his  powers  limit- 
ed, if  he  be  compelled  to  seek  reincarnation  through 
inferior  physical  progenitors.  He  is  thus  violently 
thrown  back  to  partake  in  the  common  lot,  to  share 
in  the  suffering  he  has  selfishly  tried  to  avoid. 
Only  by  raising  the  whole  of  humanity  is  it  possible 
for  its  egos  to  make  real  and  permanent  progress. 
Thus  reincarnation,  even  from  the  physical  stand- 
poins,  re-enforces  and  re-declares  the  law  of  the 
brotherhood  of  man ;  the  law  of  his  very  highest 
being  as  well  as  his  lowest,  and  in  which  is  to  be 
found  his  only  hope  of  attainment  to  the  elysian 
fields  of  the  gods. 

We  see,  then,  true  philosophy,  true  science  and 
true  religion,  all  requiring  reincarnation  to  meet 
their  demands ;  that  innumerable  phenomena  upon 
every  plane  of  nature  are  alone  explicable  by  it ; 
that  it  satisfies  the  heart  and  intellect  alike.     Let 


112  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

us,  therefore,  if  we  be  men  and  not  babes  afraid  of 
our  own  shadows,  accept  it,  and,  accepting  it,  so 
live  that  humanity  will  one  day  have  progressed 
until  incarnation  in  these  mortal  bodies  upon  this 
plane  of  illusion  will  no  longer  be  necessary. 


CHAPTER   XIII 


THE    NATURE    OF    THE    SOUL 


THE  soul  is  a  unit  of  consciousness.  But  what 
is  consciousness?  The  universe,  including 
man,  must  have  a  source.  This  source  may 
be  termed  God,  or  the  Absolute,  or  the  Unknow- 
able, as  one  chooses.  It  is  of  necessity  infinite ;  and 
that  which  is  finite  can  not  comprehend  the  infin- 
ite. But  the  infinite  can  not  be  out  of  all  relation 
to  the  finite,  for  the  finite  depends  upon  the  infinite 
for  its  existence;  and,  therefore,  the  Unknowable 
must  present  to  the  finite  certain  aspects  of  itself 
which  are  comprehensible.  These  aspects  are  mat- 
ter, force  and  consciousness.  Consciousness  is  that 
aspect  of  the  Absolute  which  perceives,  reasons, 
feels,  wills,  and  directs.  Neither  matter,  nor  force, 
possess  any  of  these  discriminating  powers;  there- 
fore consciousness  appears  to  be  the  superior  of  the 
three. 

Man's  body,  in  common  with  the  entire  universe 
(for  the  universe  is  but  embodied  consciousness),  is 
governed  from  within  outward.  Every  thought 
which  enters  the  human  brain  comes  into  it  ready- 
made;  every  motion  of  which  the  human  body 
is    capable    arises   through   some    inner    impulse. 


114  THE   EVIDENCE   OF  IMMORTALITY 

Inner  control  is  universal  and  absolute.  The  fact 
that  the  universe  is  governed  from  within  outward 
is  evidenced  by  the  appearance  or  design  every- 
where. Theological  assumptions  and  assertions 
have  caused  this  argument  of  design  to  become 
somewhat  discredited.  Theology  teaches  that  an 
anthropomorphic  God  created  the  universe,  and 
governs  it  solely  by  his  personal,  and,  therefore, 
mutable,  will.  But  certain  laws  of  nature  were 
recognized  which  transcend  the  possibilities  of  an- 
thropomorphic divinity,  and  blind  force,  taking  the 
direction  of  least  resistance,  displaced  and  en- 
deavored to  discredit  the  view  of  design.  If  one 
takes  the  larger  view  that  everything  in  the  uni- 
verse is  governed  from  within  without,  the  argu- 
ment of  design  holds  good,  and  proves  that  there  is 
within  the  cosmos  that  which  designs  in  advance 
of  execution  ;  and  this  is  consciousness. 

Material  laws  themselves  are  only  the  evidence 
of  a  broader,  deeper  designing.  They  show  that 
there  are  beings  as  far  in  advance  of  ourselves  as 
we  are  apparently  in  advance  of  the  flower  or  the 
insect ;  beings  whose  thought  takes  form  in  mate- 
rial worlds  and  in  the  forms  of  entities  which  in- 
habit them ;  whose  will  is  seen  in  the  laws  which 
govern  such  worlds.  In  short,  if  there  were  not 
this  inner  consciousness,  designing,  guiding,  con- 
trolling everything,  then  this  universe  would  be  but 
chaos. 

Matter  is  incapable  of  self-guidance.     Of  itself, 


NATURE   OF  THE  SOUL      '  115 

it  is  inert  and  lifeless.  Force,  of  itself,  is  non-intel- 
ligent ;  for  even  the  laws  of  nature  which  are  the 
wills  of  high,  divine  beings,  in  their  mere  action 
show  themselves  to  be  mechanical.  An  earthquake 
does  not  choose  its  victims ;  a  hurricane  does  not 
avoid  certain  localities  and  devastate  others,  for 
these  are  but  examples  of  general  laws  under 
which  the  entire  world  exists ;  and  in  any  specific 
case  are  necessarily  non-intelligent. 

Consciousness  and  matter  are  ever  associated 
and  force  is  but  an  expression  of  the  effect  of  con- 
sciousness acting  in  matter.  Yet  matter  ever  lim- 
its consciousness;  prevents  it  from  exhibiting  all 
its  powers.  The  more  dense  the  matter,  the  less  the 
consciousness  which  can  be  displayed.  This  is  im- 
portant to  remember.  We  do  not  know  what  con- 
sciousness is  in  itself.  We  do  not  know  that  it  can 
even  exist  without  a  material  association.  Cer- 
tainly, there  is  no  evidence  of  such  existence  in  the 
manifested  universe,  and  with  unmanifested  realms 
we  have  no  present  concern.  Therefore,  in  its  ma- 
terial associations  we  may  expect  to  find  infinite 
gradations  of  the  manifestations  of  consciousness, 
for  the  infinite  can  only  manifest  itself  finitely  by 
an  infinite  number  or  succession  of  finite  phe- 
nomena. 

For  convenience  of  study,  consciousness  may  be 
divided  into  the  mineral,  vegetable,  animal  and 
human  kingdoms.  In  the  mineral  and  vegetable 
kingdoms  there  is   no  appearance  of  the  Not-me, 


116  THE   EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

no  self-differentiation  is  possible.  But  both  these 
states  are  throbbing  with  the  consciousness  of  life, 
which,  as  yet,  is  in  the  universal.  In  the  animal 
kingdom  the  Not-me  is  faintly  dawning;  in  the 
human  it  appears  as  an  I-am-myself,  which  separ- 
ates itself  from  the  universe  without.  This  recog- 
nition of  egoity  is  a  possibility  in  all  states  of  con- 
sciousness. It  does  not  appear  in  the  lower  king- 
doms because  it  is  prevented  from  manifesting  by 
the  density  or  materiality  of  the  vehicle;  but  it  is 
there  as  a  potentiality. 

But  what  is  egohood  —  this  mysterious  power  of 
self-recognition  as  I-am-I  ?  It  roots  in  the  Abso- 
lute—  is  lost  in  that  "pavilion  which  is  surrounded 
by  darkness."  Out  of  Absolute  Unity  all  mani- 
fested differentiation  of  necessity  proceeds.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  this  unity  is  manifesting  itself  in  an  infi- 
nite number  of  units  of  consciousness,  every  unit  of 
which  is  capable  through  the  process  of  involution 
and  evolution,  of  manifesting  all  potentialities  con- 
tained in  its  Source.  Every  phenomenon  of  the 
manifested  universe,  all  evolution  in  nature,  dem- 
onstrates that  atomic  units  of  consciousness  are 
passing  through  some  great  Cycle  of  Necessity,  and 
so  widening  infinite  potentiality  into  actual  potency. 
This  is  the  meaning  of,  and  the  reason  for,  the  pro- 
cess of  evolution. 

The  soul,  then,  is  a  unit  of  consciousness.  But 
unity,  by  its  very  nature,  is  incomprehensible. 
What    says   mathematics,   the   most  exact  of    all 


NATURE   OF  THE  SOUL  117 

science,  of  the  unit?  Once  one  is — what?  Two? 
No;  once  one  is  onel  One  divided  by  one  is — 
what?  A  half  of  one?  No;  one  divided  by 
one  is  still  one !  Is  there  not  herein  a  great  mys- 
tery ?  One  added  to  one  makes  two ;  one  subtract- 
ed from  one  leaves  nothing.  "We  can  add  units  of 
consciousness  together,  until  out  of  them  we  have 
an  infinite  universe,  but  to  multiply  them  or  divide 
them,  or,  in  other  words,  to  produce  them  out  of 
each  other  is  impossible.  The  soul  remains  forever 
a  unit,  uncreate  and  immutable. 

Unity,  thus  seen  to  dwell  in  matter,  enters  also 
into  consciousness ;  for  matter,  force,  and  conscious- 
ness are  inseparable.  Unity  in  one  demonstrates  it 
in  all,  so  that,  mathematically,  we  are  forced  to 
recognize  a  unit  of  consciousness  or  a  soul. 

There  is  no  science  which  is  not  built  upon 
unity ;  which  does  not  depend  upon  units  for  its 
existence.  Mathematics,  physics,  chemistry,  astron- 
omy, all  are  based  upon  this  mysterious  unity,  this 
atom  which  must  be  postulated  before  the  demon- 
stration of  any  science  whatever.  Material  atoms 
must  exist  that  the  universe  may  exist ;  conscious 
atoms  must  exist,  that  differentiated  consciousness, 
or  souls,  may  exist. 

The  soul,  then,  is  a  conscious  unit,  or  a  unit  of 
consciousness.  It  must  be  a  unit  because  it  can 
cognize  or  know  unity.  It  is  not  possible  for  the 
soul  to  conceive  of  a  quality  which  it  does  not  pos- 
sess.    Can  the  stone  or  the  flower  think  of  itself  as 


118  THE   EVIDENCE  OF    IMMORTALITY 

I  ?  But  man  —  all  his  thoughts,  his  emotions,  his 
passions,  his  will,  everything  which  constitutes  him 
man,  every  faculty  of  his  soul,  depends  for  its  ex- 
istence upon  this  recognition  of  I-am-myself,  this 
unit  of  consciousness  upon  which  has  at  length 
dawned  the  first,  faint,  reflection  of  that  infinite, 
eternal  unity  in  which  it  has  it  source  and  which  it 
IS.  It  is,  therefore,  a  self-evident  truth  that  the 
soul  is  a  unit  because  it  perceives  unity. 

The  soul  is  a  unit,  also,  because  it  conserves  con- 
scious experiences.  The  acorn  brings  forth  oaks ; 
and  throughout  the  eternities  it  will  produce  but 
oaks  so  long  as  this  unit  of  consciousness  seeks  and 
finds  expression  within  the  vegetable  kingdom.  In 
the  human  soul,  identity  is  equally  evident.  Each 
soul  has  a  multitude  of  conscious  experiences,  in- 
volving the  production  of  conscious  energy.  The 
law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  is  universal; 
and  no  soul  can  conserve  the  conscious  experiences 
of  another.  Whatever  conscious  experiences  one 
has  can  be  recorded  only  upon  his  own  soul ;  not 
upon  that  of  another,  and  therefore,  this  record 
Can  not  be  made,  preserved,  nor  conserved,  unless 
the  soul  is  an  indestructible,  eternal  unit  of  con- 
ness. 

The  soul  is  a  unit,  also,  because  it  can  perceive 
itself.  Can  the  flower  perceive  itself?  Does  the 
rock  recognize  that  it  is  a  rock  ?  But  the  human 
soul  recognizes  unity,  which  is  but  itself,  yet  being 
still  under  the  sway  of  the  the  illusion  of  matter 


/ 


NATURE  OF  THE  SOUL  119 

separates  itself  from  its  source  and,  therefore,  from 
all  other  units,  which  is  the  Great  Illusion.  This 
recognition  of  I-am-I  is  born  with  the  human  soul, 
and  is  just  as  strong  in  the  cradle  as  it  is  at  the 
very  threshold  of  the  grave.  All  through  life  it  is 
the  one  thing  which  ever  persists ;  which  is  never 
lost.  With  its  very  first  expression  of  conscious- 
ness, the  child  exclaims,  "  I-am-myself ."  With  its 
last  breath  it  makes  the  same  assertion.  All  the 
wilderness  of  change,  all  the  phenomena  of  mental 
growth,  of  conscious  expansion,  have  not  altered  in 
one  iota  that  innate  recognition  of  unity  which  pro- 
claims, "I-am-myself-and-none-other ! " 

The  soul  is  a  unit  of  consciousness  because  it  re- 
members its  past.  Memory  implies  a  stable,  sure, 
permanent  record,  upon  which  experiences  are  en- 
graved, or  the  soul  could  not  recall  them.  Each 
one  remembers  his  past —  not  another's.  And  it 
would  be  impossible  for  us  to  remember  any  past  if 
the  soul  were  not  a  unit,  eternal  and  immutable. 
The  brain  is  a  molecular,  mechanical  apparatus. 
Its  molecules  are  coming  and  going  incessantly. 
Seven  years,  we  are  taught,  is  sufficient  to  complete 
the  change  of  the  very  hardest  bone ;  seven  hours, 
perhaps,  may  completely  change  the  entire  brain 
substance.  Certainly,  it  changes  with  great  ra- 
pidity. The  material  tablet  upon  which  an  event 
is  recorded  is  destroyed  and  renewed  scores  of  times, 
yet  throughout  all  memory  persists — a  thing  im- 
possible if  there  were  not  an  unchanging  unit  of 


120  THE   EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

consciousness,  upon  which  all  conscious  experi- 
ences are  recorded,  and  which  the  phenomena  of 
memory  proves  to  exist  and  to  be  beyond  the  do- 
main of  decay  or  chance. 

The  soul  is  a  unit  because  it  synthesizes  all  the 
various  reports  of  the  senses.  The  hand  feels  a 
thing.  The  sense  of  sight  reports  a  thing  quite 
different.  If  there  were  not  that  within  which 
takes  these  two  reports — that  conveyed  by  touch, 
and  that  recorded  by  sight — and  harmonizes  and 
synthesizes  them,  what  would  the  world  be  but 
chaos  and  unreality?  These  every-day  experiences, 
these  things  which  are  necessary  to  our  lives  hour 
by  hour  and  moment  by  moment,  prove  beyond 
question  the  existence  of  the  soul  and  its  unity; 
if  we  only  patiently  observe  and  reason  upon 
them. 

The  soul  is  a  unit  of  consciousness,  then,  and  it 
is  independent  of  the  body.  The  body  is  destroyed 
almost  entirely  by  old  age,  or  by  sickness;  yet,  if 
the  person  has  cultivated  his  reasoning  powers, 
does  old  age  dim  them  ?  It  does  not ;  it  only  weak- 
ens the  reasoning  powers  of  those  who  have  lived 
as  vegetables.  The  man  who  has  lived  a  life  of 
thought  takes  the  power  of  thought  to  the  grave 
with  him.  It  can  not  be  destroyed.  The  body 
may  be  emaciated  by  disease,  yet  the  soul  will 
reason  the  more  acutely  because  of  this  suppres- 
sion of  the  merely  animal  portion  of  man.  There 
are   many  diseases   which  suspend   conscious i 


NATURE  OF  THE   SOUL  121 

but  this  is  because  they  impair  its  principal  ve- 
hicle, the  brain.  But,  setting  this  aside,  there  are 
numberless  instances  of  disease  which  destroy  the 
body  without  impairing  consciousness.  Old  age  it- 
self never  impairs  the  consciousness  of  that  soul 
which  has  compelled  its  brain  to  think. 

The  universal  belief  in  a  soul  is  not  evidence ;  it 
is  only  testimony.  Yet,  when  almost  the  entire 
world  accepts  a  thing,  may  we  not  believe  that  the 
idea  is  innate,  and  innate  because  it  is  true ;  that 
the  soul  recognizes  its  truth,  even  though  it  be  har- 
assed and  limited  by  matter,  and  asserts  from  its 
own  nature  the  truth  which  it  thus  intuitively  rec- 
ognizes ? 

It  is  not  demanded  that  the  soul  be  placed  as  a 
material  thing  in  evidence.  In  one  aspect  it  is 
material,  but  its  matter  can  not  be  seen,  touched 
or  tasted.  In  consciousness  itself  must  be  sought 
the  proof  of  consciousness. 

Materialists  may  declare,  "You  have  never  seen 
a  soul."  Let  us  answer,  "You  have  never  seen  a 
body."  A  flux  and  flow  of  *  atoms,  streaming  in 
and  out  by  millions,  never  for  the  "thousandth  of 
an  instant  the  same,  is  more  unreal  than  the  soul. 
The  soul  is  not  an  object  of  physical  perception ; 
but  of  spiritual,  or  conscious,  recognition. 

Logic  and  philosophy,  on  the  one  hand,  agree 
with  the  phenomena  of  life,  on  the  other,  in  de- 
claring that  man  is  a  soul,  and  not  the  mere  lump 
of  clay  which  chains  him   to  the  earth.     It  is  the 


122  THE   EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

body  alone,  with  its  desires  and  passions,  which 
separates  us  from  each  other,  not  the  soul  within, 
which,  when  it  can  make  itself  heard,  always  de- 
clares its  unity — its  brotherhood  —  with  all  other 
souls.  This  feeling  of  brotherhood  has  a  deep  sig- 
nificance, for  it  is  the  mute  testimony  of  the  soul  to 
the  common  origin  of  all  souls — the  recognition  of 
a  divine  Unity,  in  which  all  have  their  source  and 
life.  So,  recognizing  that  man  is  a  soul,  an  eter- 
nal, imperishable  center  of  consciousness,  which 
life  or  death  affects  not,  except  to  change  its  tem- 
porary vestments,  each  can  press  forward  toward 
the  goal  of  his  own  god-like  destiny;  each  can  face 
the  gates  of  deatli  undaunted;  for  life  in  the  cv 
of  time  will  bring  us  again  and  again  to  its  portals 
for  the  unfolding  of  that  divine  nature,  now  so 
deeply  buried  in  the  coils  of  matter.  So  let  us  set 
ourselves  earnestly  to  seek  the  meaning  of  out 
journ  in  these  bodies  of  clay,  not  foolishly  declar- 
ing the  sensuous  experiences  of  the  body  to  be  all 
there  is  of  life.  Nothing  can  come  to  us  hut  our 
own,  whether  of  joy  or  sorrow;  for  the  Galilean 
Adept  stated*  the  whole  law  of  life  when  he  de- 
clared: "Brethren,  be  not  deceived;  God  is  not 
mocked,  for  whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he 
also  reap." 


CHAPTER   XIV 
CAN    THE    DEAD    COMMUNICATE? 

THIS   question  can  only  be  answered  after   a 
thorough  examination  of  the  constitution  of 
the  mortal  man.     For,  after  all,  the  question 
is  not  so  much,  Can  the  real  ego  communicate  ?  as, 
Can  the  last  personality  communicate  ? 

We  want  to  hear  from  our  dead  as  they  were 
when  we  knew  them.  Anything  which  is  new  or 
strange  is  something  to  which  we  strenuously  ob- 
ject. "What  is  the  use,"  we  ask,  "of  communica- 
ting unless  rt  is  with  the  personality  we  knew  and 
loved  ?"  So  the  whole  question,  from  its  spiritual- 
istic aspect  resolves  itself  into  an  eager  search  for 
tests  that  the  communication  is  genuine,  and  really 
from  the  personality  from  whom  it  claims  to  eman- 
ate. How  satisfactory  this  has  proven,  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  the  life-long,  veteran  spiritualist  is 
just  as  eager  for  new  and  more  satisfactory  tests 
to-day  as  he  was  a  half-century  since,  when  he  be- 
gan investigating.  This  condition  could  not  ob- 
tain if  the  tests  were  really  as  satisfactory  as  the 
advocates  of  this  philosophy  would  have  us  be- 
lieve. We  must  first  of  all  realize  that  the  soul  is  a 
center  of  consciousness — a  unity  representing  that 


124  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

great  Unity  of  which  the  cosmos  is  an  adumbra- 
tion. It  eludes  analysis — is  as  incapable  of  com- 
prehension as  the  Absolute  itself.  Like  the  latter, 
its  nature  can  only  be  conjectured  from  the  phe- 
nomena which  it  causes,  and  which  betray  its  in- 
dwelling. Thus  it  is  a  unit  because  it  perceives 
and  comprehends  unity  and  postulates  it  of  things 
outside  itself — an  impossibility  did  it  not  possess 
unity  as  an  attribute  of  itself,  as  has  been  well 
shown  by  Professor  Ladd  and  others.*  It  has  also 
the  elements  of  pity,  compassion,  love,  unselfish- 
ness, with  many  other  divine  qualities,  because  it 
feels  these  things.  The  opposites  of  these,  as  hatred, 
revenge,  selfishness,  etc.,  do  not  inhere  in  its  true 
essence  because  it  constantly  rejects  them — tries 
eternally  to  purge  these  things  from  its  conscious- 
ness. They  can,  therefore,  be  but  perversions,  finite 
and  temporary,  of  truly  divine  qualities.  No  one 
desires  to  hate  unless  under  the  sway  of  selfishness 
and  ignorance — and  ignorance  is  the  source  of  all 
selfishness. 

This  divine,  incomprehensible  center  and  unit  of 
consciousness  manifests  itself  upon  the  finite  Bide 
of  existence  by  means  of  so-called  material  ve- 
hicles, although  these  vehicles  are  themselves  the 
seat  of  the  consciousness  of  entities  at  different 
stages,  and  traversing  differing  arcs,  of  the  infinite- 
ly varied  cycles  of  evolution.  Coming  from  the 
Absolute,  as  it  must,  and    manifesting   upon   this 

*  Elements  of  Psychological  Physiology. 


CAN  THE   DEAD  COMMUNICATE?  125 

outer,  material  rim  of  the  cosmos,  as  it  undoubted- 
ly does,  it  follows  as  a  logical  and  partially  dem- 
onstrable proposition,  that  the  soul  has  an  almost 
infinitely  compound  vehicle,  which  ranges  from  the 
coarse  molecules  of  which  our  bodies  are  composed 
to  matter  which  not  only  eludes  analysis,  but 
baffles  comprehension  in  its  fineness,  tenuity,  and 
above  all,  its  potentialities  of  conscious  manifesta- 
tion, or  of  permitting  the  evolution  of  the  soul 
through  undreamed-of  fields  of  conscious  experi- 
ences. This  matter  also  proceeds  from  unity,  and, 
because  of  this,  there  are  no  hard  and  fast  lines 
dividing  this  compound  vehicle  into  so  many  lay- 
ers, or  skins,  like  those  of  an  onion,  for  example. 
A  knowledge  of  this  fact  must  follow  us  through  all 
our  investigations,  and  will  enable  us  to  extricate 
ourselves  from  many  an  otherwise  insuperable  dif- 
ficulty. In  it  is  to  be  found  the  only  solution  to 
the  question  under  consideration. 

For,  while  not  separating  like  the  skins  of  an 
onion,  there  are  certain  lines  of  cleavage — certain 
weak  or  critical  states  of  matter,  which,  because 
partaking  of  the  nature  of  the  states  both  above 
and  below,  are  not  so  strong  as  either  of  these,  and 
therefore  afford  normal  lines  of  separation.  It  is 
these  lines  of  cleavage  which,  from  their  material 
aspect,  mark  the  divisions  known  in  Theosophical 
philosophy  as  the  Seven  Principles.  But  as 
each  state  or  principle  passes  by  insensible  grada- 
tions into  the  state  or  principle  above  or  below,  the 


126  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

separation,  at  first,  is  never  complete,  either  me- 
chanically or  consciously.  Time — that  universal 
factor  in  all  the  phenomena  of  finite  manifestation 
— is  required  to  complete  the  separation. 

Thus,  the  soul  which  dies  out  of  its  physical  body 
has  still  enough  remnants  of  molecular  matter  to 
enable  it  to  dimly  sense  the  things  of  earth,  though 
not  enough  to  enable  the  man  of  earth  to  sense  its 
presence  except  under  very  exceptional  conditions. 
This  power  is  quite  faint  in  normal  deaths — but 
who  dies  normally?  Not  one  in  a  million, perhaps. 
We  are  so  ignorant  of  the  laws  of  the  plane  upon 
which  we  are  struggling  to  maintain  our  existence 
thai  practically  none  conform  to  them  exactly  (an 
absolute  necessity  if  our  stay  here  is  to  prove  nor- 
mal), and  so  has  arisen  that  abnormal  state  of  con- 
sciousness known  among  Theosophists  as  kaina- 
loka,  and  among  Catholics,  though  wholly  misun- 
derstood, as  purgatory. 

This  is  not  to  be  wondered  at.  With  religious 
concepts  which  would  almost  be  dignified  if  cl; 
as  superstitions;  with  ideals  based  wholly  upon 
erroneous  conceptions  of  life;  with  our  whole  na- 
ture tending  earthward  and  longing  for  the  things 
of  earth ;  with  our  mutilated  lives  cut  short  while 
our  desires  are  still  unsatisfied,  it  is  small  wonder, 
indeed,  that  the  soul  is  unable  to  rest  after  death. 
So  it  has  widened  a  normally  narrow  critical  con- 
dition into  a  deep  and  yawning  gulf,  out  of  which 
it  can  not  be  prayed,  and  of  whose  unrealities  it 


CAN  THE   DEAD  COMMUNICATE?  127 

must  become  utterly  weary  before  it  can  cross  to 
the  safe  shores  of  temporary  oblivion  —  of  sleep 
and  dream. 

From  this  purgatory  the  PERSONALITY  can 
under  exceptional  conditions,  communicate.  That 
is  to  say,  the  person  as  we  knew  him,  the  man  of 
earth,  through  the  creative  power  of  his  imagina- 
tion, builds  for  himself  a  faint,  and  ordinarily  in- 
visible, replica  of  his  physical  body  from  matter  of 
a  molecular  nature  which  still  clings  to  his  disem- 
bodied soul,  by  means  of  which  he  maintains  a 
faint  and  exceedingly  temporary  hold  upon  ma- 
terial things.  Such  a  soul  coming  in  contact  with 
a  medium  or  person  with  a  diseased  and,  therefore, 
abnormally  sensitive  astral  body,  can  undoubtedly 
make  its  identity  known.  The  communication  is 
fleeting  and  unsatisfactory  to  all  concerned,  both 
to  the  disembodied  entities  and  to  those  in  the 
flesh ;  but  it  can  be  accomplished.  Under  exceed- 
ingly abnormal  conditions  the  personality  can 
even  materialize  and  become  visible  to  the  physi- 
cal eyes  of  any  one.  These  abnormal  conditions 
are  largely  the  coming  together  of  personalities 
from  both  sides  of  the  grave,  each  imbued  with  an 
intense  desire  to  manifest,  one  or  more  of  them 
being  a  medium,  or  person  with  an  abnormally 
developed  and  sensitive  astral  body,  and  an  ac- 
quired tendency  for  it  to  "  ooze  out."  Now  let  the 
light  be  so  dim  as  not  to  disintegrate  the  form, 
and   the  "  spook "  may  so  clothe  itself    with   the 


128  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

medium's  astral  shape  as  to  become  plainly  visible. 
But  it  is  rarely,  if  ever,  that  those  who  claim  to  be 
dead  relatives,  etc.,  really  are  such.  The  audiences 
are  usually  so  self-hypnotized,  so  self-deluded  by 
their  intense  desire  for  abnormal  phenomena,  that 
the  same  spook  will  often  impersonate  a  host  of  the 
"dear  departed."  Or,  the  thought  of  some  strong 
will  present  may  actually  mold  the  astral  matter. 
unconsciously  to  himself,  into  the  resemblance 
stamped  by  affection  upon  his  memory.  Besides, 
the  spooks  who  can  return  in  this  way  are  the  very 
lowest  and  most  material  of  all.  Lost  souls,  or 
those  from  whom  the  reincarnating  ego  has  depart- 
ed, and  whose  very  existence  depends  upon  their 
being  able  to  prey  like  vampires  upon  the  foolish 
living,  are  often  to  be  found  among  them.  Mate- 
rialization is  wholly  abnormal  and  uncanny,  and 
so  many  influences  are  at  work  in  its  production 
that  its  modus  operandum  is  hard  to  unravel.  As  a 
proof  that  there  is  some  sort  of  existence  beyond 
the  grave,  although  this  be  extremely  undesirable, 
it  is  of  some  doubtful  value ;  as  a  means,  or  proof 
of,  communication  with  the  dead,  it  is  utterly  val- 
ueless. Probably  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  of 
«  vi  ry  thousand  alleged  materializations  are  fraudu- 
lent and  impudent  impositions  upon  the  credulity 
of  those  present,  and  from  the  few  spooks  who  do 
maintain  an  uncertain  existence  for  a  few  moments 
upon  this,  to  them,  abnormal  plane,  nothing  of 
value  ever  did  come,  or,  from  the  very  nature  of  the 


CAN   THE   DEAD  COMMUNICATE?  129 

circumstances,  ever  can  come.  Such  phenomena 
may  confound  the  gross  materialist,  but  here  use- 
fulness ends,  and  it  is  an  exceedingly  doubtful 
question  if  the  whole  game  is  worth  the  candle. 

The  communication  by  the  dead  through  the 
senses  must  always  be  attended  with  great  diffi- 
culty, owing  to  the  exceedingly  imperfect  sense  or- 
gans which  remain  for  a  brief  period  after  the 
death  of  the  body.  Yet  it  is  just  this  sensuous 
communication  which  the  sensuous  man  demands. 
He  must  see  and  hear  and  feel  the  ghost  —  must 
thrust  his  hand  into  the  wounded  side,  before  he 
will  believe.  With  his  own  senses  dulled  by  the 
grossness  of  his  desires,  and  with  the  faintest  re- 
plica of  sense-organs  remaining  in  the  case  of  the 
dead,  it  is  small  wonder  that  the  persistent  search 
after  tests  is  so  futile  And  this  remaining  re- 
plica is  the  more  marked  as  the  soul  is  more  gross, 
whence  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  most  bestial  men 
when  living  are  exactly  those  who  can  communi- 
cate the  most  easily  when  dead. 

This  is  not  an  idle  assertion,  but  one  capable  of 
scientific  demonstration.  Matter  is  not  the  dead 
thing  which  our  materialists  would  have  us  be- 
lieve. It  is  always  associated  with  consciousness 
of  some  degree,  and  this  associated  conscious- 
ness really  determines  the  plane  to  which  it  be- 
longs. Thus  in  the  case  of  a  normal  line  of  divis- 
ion between  two  states  of  matter,  already  referred 
to,  it  is  plain  that  the  thought  of   the  individual 


130  THE   EVIDENCE  OF   IMMORTALITY 

will  largely  determine  the  exact  line  of  cleavage. 
Physical  matter  passes  by  imperceptible  degrees 
into  the  finer  matter  of  the  next  higher  plane. 
Coarse  desires  and  low  thoughts  will  so  taint  the 
consciousness  of  the  cells  along  this  critical  line 
that  they  will  divide  much  lower  down  than  is  the 
case  in  one  whose  thoughts  and  desires  were  high, 
and  thus  a  stratum  of  tainted  matter,  which  ought 
to  have  remained  with  the  body  and  to  have  per- 
ished with  it,  remains  as  a  basis  for  the  astral 
senses  of  the  sensuous  entity.  Such  vicious  and 
sin-tainted  souls  will  naturally  cling  to  the  only 
consciousness  which  appeals  to  them.  They  will 
seek  the  things  of  earth  with  a  passionate  longing. 
A  lie  more  or  less  counts  for  nothing  with  them,  if 
it  enables  them  to  partake  vicariously,  even  for  a 
few  minutes,  of  the  lost  pleasures  of  earth.  The 
fleshpots  of  Egypt  are  sweet  to  their  palates,  and 
personification  of  the  dead  relative  of  a  credulous 
dupe  wonderfully  easy. 

It  will  thus  be  -seen  that  sensuous  messages,  or 
those  which  come  through  the  avenues  of  the 
senses,  are  as  unreliable  and,  therefore,  as  useless 
as  are  materializations.  Occasionally,  and  under 
exceptional  circumstances  (a  pure,  unselfish  and 
spiritually  minded  medium  is  absolutely  essential), 
a  genuine  message  may  drift  through  while  the  de- 
parted soul  is  yet  in  the  borderland  and  held  to 
earth  by  the  ties  of  a  strong  personal  affection. 
But  for  all  except  the  vicious  and  depraved  there  is 


CAN  THE   DEAD  COMMUNICATE?  131 

ample  reason  for  believing  that  this  borderland  is 
swiftly  crossed,  and  that  the  soul  begins  to  live  in 
its  imagination  within  a  few  minutes,  even,  of 
death.  Note  the  case  of  the  physician,  referred  to 
heretofore. 

But  there  is  a  means  of  communicating  with  the 
dead,  as  well  as  with  the  living,  ever  at  hand.  This 
is  through  the  higher  faculties  of  the  soul,  and 
these  are  equally  active  in  life  or  death.  Con- 
sciousness is  vibration,  and  the  consciousness  of 
love  crosses  all  gulfs.  The  soul,  embodied  or  dis- 
embodied, knows  no  higher  vibration  than  that 
aroused  and  created  by  the  feeling  of  pure  love. 
There  is  nothing  molecular  in  it — it  roots  in  the 
very  Absolute  itself.  It  may  be  speechless — for 
who  can  find  words  to  express  even  sense-tainted 
compassion  and  pity? — but  it  is  able  to  reach  the 
consciousness  of  the  soul  on  both  sides  of  the 
grave.  Else  who  could  endure  the  sorrow  of  death's 
awful  separations?  Entire  annihilation  of  the 
soul,  total  oblivion,  forever  and  ever,  would  be  far 
preferable  to  the  chasm  between  us  and  our  be- 
loved were  this  as  real  as  our  deluded  senses  would 
have  us  believe.  The  comforting  consciousness,  the 
evidence  of  the  real  presence  of  disembodied  souls 
through  their  uninterrupted  love  and  sympathy, 
enable  us  all  to  dry  our  tears,  while  we  won- 
der, perhaps,  why  our  grief  will  not  stay.  For  it 
is  only  selfish  and  sensuous  souls  who  sink  into  the 
depth  of  their  very  lowest  sense-consciousness,  and 


132  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

refuse  to  listen  to  the  tender  assurances  of  the 
higher  and  true  Self.  Such  grieve  because  they  are 
selfish,  and  the  luxury  of  their  grief  affords  them 
for  the  present  the  very  highest  pleasure,  however 
much  they  would  affect  to  be  shocked  if  they  were 
told  the  truth.  In  fact,  all  the  emotions  of  the 
lower  self — anger,  hatred,  pouting,  or  sulking,  etc., 
are  always  indulged  in  because  the  lower  and,  for 
the  time,  dominant  self  finds  in  them  its  present 
highest  satisfaction — is  actually  taking  pleasure  in 
them ! 

Not  only  these  high  and  holy  feelings,  which  lie 
at  the  very  base  of  our  being,  but  high,  pure, 
and  unselfish  thoughts,  also  cross  the  Bridge  of 
Sighs  which  seems  to  divide  the  two  worlds  of  life 
and  death.  The  inspirations  of  the  poet,  the  art- 
ist, the  musician — who  can  tell  their  exact  source? 
Similarly,  messages  of  hope,  of  encouragement  in 
days  of  difficulty,  may  come  from  either  side  of  the 
grave.  They  are  the  truest  communications,  for 
they  assure  us  that  we  are  not  alone  nor  forgotten 
by  gods  or  men  in  this  awful,  lonely  sense-school, 
in  which  we  are  now  striving  to  learn  the  meaning 
of  life.  The  dramatizing  power  of  the  untram- 
meled  imagination  of  the  disembodied  soul  may 
even  construct  a  guard  of  protecting  entities  around 
the  beloved  one  who  still  remains  in  the  darkness 
of  the  flesh.  The  cases  of  premonitions,  of  warn- 
ings of  danger,  are  much  too  numerous  to  be  all 
due  to  blind  chance.     They  show  a  protecting  love 


CAN  THE   DEAD  COMMUNICATE?  133 

which  may  well  come  from  those  whom  we  have 
dearly  loved,  but  who  have  passed  to  the  subjective 
side  of  the  cycle  of  life.  But  here  we  enter  a  land 
of  shadows  and  mystery  which  it  is  not  our  present 
purpose  to  explore. 

But,  let  it  be  repeated  and  emphasized,  the  com- 
munications from  the  "summerland"  of  Spiritual- 
ism are  from  the  personalities  of  the  dead,  and  are 
strong  and  decided  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
earthly  tendencies  of  those  personalities.  The  true 
soul,  the  real  being  whom  we  loved  through,  per- 
haps, a  long  life  of  changing  form,  never  communi- 
cates except  from  its  own  higher  plane,  and  in  the 
manner  indicated.  It  is  the  astral  corpse,  the  un- 
canny remains  of  the  lower  nature,  that  haunts 
mediums,  and  seeks  to  renew  and  re-experience  the 
old  sensuous  delights.  Such  communications  are 
as  valueless  and  unreal  as  would  be  the  utterances 
of  a  physical  corpse  galvanized  into  a  semblance 
of  life  by  electrical  or  other  means. 

These  communications  usher  their  participants 
into  the  company  of  those  with  whom  they  would 
scorn  to  associate  if  they  were  embodied,  but  whose 
foul  embraces  are  now  considered  holy  because  of 
the  apparent  mystery  which  accompanies  their 
manifestation.  Lost  souls,  murderers,  suicides,  In- 
dians, and  the  undeveloped  and  vicious  generally, 
are  the  chosen  friends  of  reverential  test-seekers. 
Like  causes  produce  like  effects,  and  spiritualistic 
phenomena   would    not    be    surrounded    by   that 


134  THE    EVIDENCE  OF    IMMORTALITY 

aura  of  deceit  and  trickery,  did  they  proceed  from 
the  souls  of  our  pure  and  virtuous  dead. 

Besides,  all  that  any  spook  can  accomplish  in 
the  way  of  communications  alleged  to  come  from 
beyond  the  grave,  and  supposed  to  be  verified  by 
exhibiting  a  knowledge  of  occurrences  known  only 
to  the  questioner,  may  be,  and  have  often  been,  du- 
plicated by  thought  transference,  without  any  at- 
attempt  to  interject  the  wholly  unnecessary  and 
clumsy  artifice  of  a  dead  personality.  When  the 
wondrous  powers  of  the  human  soul  are  developed 
and  recognized,  spooks  as  aid-de-camps  will  no 
longer  be  tolerated.  That  large  class  of  phenom- 
ena which  cluster  around  the  borderland  between 
life  in  the  body  and  life  beyond  the  grave,  will 
then  be  understood,  and  the  vagaries  of  modern 
Spiritualism  will  cease  to  be  a  reproach  to  the  in- 
telligence of  the  West. 

Some  day  we  will  have  progressed  so  far  that  we 
will  recognize  all  souls  as  brothers,  and  will  0 
to  demand  that  our  own  dead  shall  return  to  com- 
fort us.  But  then  the  chasm  of  seeming  death  will 
have  been  wholly  bridged,  for  we  will  have  learned 
our  lesson — that  brotherhood  is  the  basis  of  being. 


CHAPTER  XV 


THE  HOME  OF  THE  SOUL 


A  STUDY  of  the  nature  of  the  soul,  and  the 
relation  it  bears  to  the  body,  even  as  brief 
and  fragmentary  as  has  been  possible  in 
this  brochure,  makes  it  abundantly  clear  that  this 
molecular  earth  is  not  its  permanent  home.  Upon 
what  blissful  realms  of  cosmos  it  has  its  abiding 
place,  we  can  only  conjecture.  Confused  by  the 
roar  of  the  senses,  with  the  memory  of  its  past 
deadened,  it  wanders  in  this  phenomenal  universe 
of  coarse,  uncongenial  matter,  a  pale  ghost  of  its 
true  self;  believing  itself  too  often,  to  be  but  the 
animal  body  with  which  it  is  transiently  asso- 
ciated. 

There  is  no  suffering  without  adequate  recom- 
pense— even  this  crude  earth  is  governed  by  the 
law  of  cause  and  effect — and  so  the  reward  of  the 
faithful  soul  for  its  toils  while  in  the  flesh  must  be 
as  bright  and  hopeful  as  its  condition  now  is  dark 
and  doubtful. 

The  soul  has  no  passions,  no  appetites,  no 
hatreds,  no  fears,  no  doubts,  no  despairings.  All 
these  belong  to,  or  are  born  from,  the  purely  physi- 
cal man.     Let  the  soul  be  freed  from  its  body,  and 


136  THE   EVIDENCE  OF   IMMORTALITY 

these  fall  away  from  it  as  the  slime  from  the  lotus 
that  has  thrust  its  petals  above  the  stagnant  pool. 
The  faculties  of  the  soul,  as  we  have  seen,  are  pity, 
compassion,  love,  unselfishness,  the  delights  of  pure 
wisdom,  the  contemplation  of  the  beautiful  and 
true,  the  intelligent  seeking  after  God  I  Creative 
geometry!  (What  unexplored  domains  await  our 
god-like  activities  in  this  department  of  nature 
alone !)  "God  geometrizes,"  declares  Plato,  and  in 
this  blissful  creative  brooding  the  soul  must  share 
— for  is  it  not  of  the  very  essence  of  God  ? 

The  home  of  the  soul  is — can  be — no  place,  as 
we  understand  locality.  It  is  a  state  of  conscious- 
ness, rather,  and  one  which  lies  not  within  the  pos- 
sibilities of  molecular  matter.  The  vibrations  of 
the  latter  are  too  coarse;  its  agglomerations  too 
crude  and  harsh.  Error  abides  here;  there  can  be 
no  error  or  falsehood  in  the  regions  the  soul  perma- 
nently inhabits.  Only  truth  can  there  abide;  illu- 
sion is  impossible.  Sorrow  can  not  enter  there; 
woe  is  forgotten ;  struggles  and  temptations  are  re- 
membered only  as  evil  dreams,  from  which  we  have 
happily  awakened ! 

For  the  home  of  the  soul  is  heaven,  paradise, 
nirvana !  What  matters  the  name  where  all  names 
fail  utterly;  or  why  attempt  to  describe  that  which 
passes  description  ? 

One  thing  unknown  to  mortals  must  be  there — 
rest;  and  freedom  from  that  change  which  here 
mars  all  our  fleeting  pleasures.     To-day  our  be- 


THE    HOME   OF  THE   SOUL  137 

loved  clasp  our  hands  and  walk  by  our  side ;  to- 
morrow they  depart — forever,  so  far  as  our  be- 
numbed senses  can  perceive.  There  can  be — there 
must  be — no  to-day  and  to-morrow  there !  It  must 
be  a  Now  which  contains  not  even  a  dream  or 
thought  of  ceasing !  For  what  is  time  but  the 
crudest  of  all  illusions  ?  The  soul  knows  it  not, 
even  while  in  the  body.  Was  there  ever  a  time 
when  it  was  not  now  to  every  soul?  Ought  not 
this  wonderful  fact  to  arouse  in  us  a  keener  percep- 
tion of  the  nature  of  Being,  of  the  impossibility  of 
death,  of  that  unalterable  calm  which  abides  by 
eternal  existence  ?  Forms  perish  and  pass,  but  the 
soul,  the  spiritual  essence,  endures  forever  and 
forever  after ! 

From  its  material  aspect  the  soul  is  undoubtedly 
an  atom  of  thought-matter ;  from  its  conscious  as- 
pect, it  is  a  unit  of  consciousness — a  reflection 
through  and  by  means  of  a  material  basis  of  that 
Infinite  Unity  which  of  necessity  constitutes  the 
subjective  side  of  Being. 

It  is,  therefore,  doubly  assured  of  immortality; 
death  of  its  body  disrobes  it  of  form,  but  touches 
not  that  innermost  center  which  is  life  itself.  Why 
this  deathless,  eternal  center  and  unit  of  conscious- 
ness should  be  engaged  in  this  weary  journey 
through  the  Cycle  of  Necessity,  the  labyrinth  of 
infinite  evolution,  it  were  idle  to  question.  But 
being  caught  in  the  coils  of  matter,  and  recogniz- 
ing itself  as  a  feeling,  loving,  suffering,  experiencing 


138  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

center  of  consciousness,  it  is  its  right  and  its  duty 
to  seek  its  own  source,  examine  its  own  faculties, 
test  its  evolved  potencies,  postulate  its  divine  po- 
tentialities. Like  an  eagle,  it  must  try  its  wings  in 
the  lower  air  first,  that  it  may  gain  the  power  to 
cleave  the  pure  ether.  Now  it  is  weighted  by  the 
fetters  of  matter  that  it  may  acquire  the  energies 
which  are  absolute  prerequisites  ere  it  mounts  to 
higher,  purer  realms. 

The  Self  of  spirit  may  be  freed  by  the  slow  and 
laborious  process  of  evolution ;  but  its  recognition, 
the  knowledge  of  its  divine  presence  and  nature, 
quickens  the  process  a  thousand  fold,  So,  let  each 
seek  within  in  his  own  heart  for  "that  light  which 
lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world." 
for  that  divine  Ishwara  which  "dwelleth  in  the 
heart  of  every  creature." 

The  soul  is  an  uncrowned  king,  dwelling  pa- 
tiently within  until  its  divine  right  to  reign  shall 
have  been  recognized.  It  will  not  accept  a  divided 
loyalty ;  it  must  reign  alone,  or  it  will  not  ascend 
the  throne.  It  ever  comforts,  counsels,  warns, 
checks,  by  its  whispered  admonitions ;  and,  indeed, 
all  that  the  lower  man  has  become  is  due  to  its 
compassionate  care,  its  silent  influence.  What, 
then,  must  lie  in  store  for  the  true  man  when  the 
soul  shall  ascend  its  throne,  an  acknowledged  sov- 
ereign and  lord  ? 

It  is  not  the  destiny  of  the  soul  to  remain  an 
exile  in  this  land  of  death;  a  derelict  drifting  on 


THE    HOME   OF  THE   SOUL  139 

the  sea  of  material  life.  It  must  some  day — when 
the  earth  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat,  and  the 
heavens  pass  away — return  to  its  home.  This 
is  in  the  strong,  loving  Thought  of  the  Oversoul ; 
in  the  safe,  changeless  depths  of  Absolute  Bliss. 
A  wayfarer  on  the  path  of  life;  a  weary  pilgrim 
journeying  to  the  land  of  the  gods,  let  us  all  hope 
and  trust  that  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  was 
the  true  vision  of  a  Christ  who  had  passed  over 
much  of  the  way  we  have  yet  to  traverse.  We  have 
all  erred  ;  we  have  all  suffered ;  we  have  all  sinned, 
but  we  can  each  one  of  us  atone.  That  tender  com- 
passion for  the  overborne  and  fallen  which  arises 
in  our  own  hearts  surpasses  not  the  pity  and  love 
of  its  infinite  Source — it  were  blasphemy  to  enter- 
tain the  morbid  thought.  So,  let  us  hope  on, 
struggle  on ;  lifting  our  eyes  above  the  darkness  of 
matter  which  now  encompasses  us,  and  some  bliss- 
ful day  we  shall  see  afar  off  our  Father's  House, 
shall  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  Place  of  Peace,  the 
City  Beautiful,  the  HOME  OF  THE  SOUL  ! 


APPENDIX   I 


IN    DEEPER    DREAMLAND 


RIGHTLY  studied,  there  are  few  subjects  more  in- 
structive than  dreams.  The  light  they  throw  upon 
the  mystery  of  life  comes  from  many,  and  often 
most  unexpected,  sources.  "Trifles  light  as  air,"  though 
they  be,  there  are  yet  causes  lying  behind  them  of  which 
the  dream  gives  as  little  indication  as  do  the  illusory 
phantoms  of  waking  life  to  its  realities. 

All  materialistic  hypotheses  of  life  break  down  hope- 
lessly when  applied  to  the  phenomena  of  dream.  The 
state  is  itself  a  profound  mystery.  One-third  of  every  hu- 
man life  is  passed  in  a  condition  only  comparable  to  that 
of  profound  swoon.  Mind  has  entirely  departed ;  man 
is  but  a  helpless  clod  of  earth  at  the  mercy  of  the  weak- 
est of  that  kingdom  of  which  he  is  the  lord  when  awake. 
This  swooning  abyss,  this  interregnum  of  apparent  an- 
nihilation, indicates  very  clearly  that  life  is  much  more 
complex  than  would  seem  to  be  the  case  when  its  waking 
states  alone  are  studied,  for  the  fact  that  the  soul  returns 
from  this  state,  and  tranquilly  connects  itself  with  its  past 
life,  shows  that  there  has  been  no  real  break  in  its  con- 
tinuity;  but  that  the  being  which  feels  and  wills  as  I-am- 
myself  in  the  waking  condition  has  been  at  least  existing, 
if  not  active,  in  some  other  state,  with  which  waking  life 


142  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

is  not  at  present  consciously  correlated.  Yet,  if  there  has 
been  no  break  in  the  real,  there  has  been  in  the  normal, 
waking  consciousness,  and  an  apparently  abnormal  state 
either  substituted  or  superimposed. 

The  ordinary  dream  has  long  been  recognized  as  not 
only  failing  in  the  reasoning  faculty  but  as  occupying  a 
distinctly  lower  moral  plane  than  the  waking  conscious- 
ness. Cicero  was  not  the  first  nor  the  last  to  discover  this 
fact ;  it  is  of  universal  experience.  It  points  to  the  almost 
irresistible  conclusion  that  man  is  either  a  dual  being, 
with  a  Dr.  Jekyll  waking  morality,  while  in  sleep  he  is  a 
Mr.  Hyde,  or  that  his  true  consciousness  is  absent  during 
the  latter  state.  The  second  hypothesis  will  appeal  to 
most  thinkers,  for  the  normal  consciousness  is  certainly 
absent  in  dream,  and  the  normal  is,  or  ought  to  be,  one 
with  the  true. 

But  if  reason  and  conscience  are  gone  what  is  the  na- 
ture of  the  decidedly  lower  consciousness  which  dreams 
these  dreams  without  recognising  their  Lack  of  reason,  or 
moral  and  ethical  failure?  For  the  absence  in  dream  of 
both  reason  and  conscience  is  a  strong  link  connecting 
these  faculties,  and  locates  them  as  attributes  of  a  soul 
Which  would  seem  to  be  limited  in  its  activities  to  the  wak- 
ing state.  A  very  important  fact  bearing  directly  upon 
the  question  of  the  source  of  these  reasonless  and  con- 
scienceless dreams,  is  that  animals  —  notably  dogs — un- 
questionably dream.  Who  has  not  seen  the  hunting  dog 
re-enact  the  scenes  of  the  chase,  until  he  awakens  himself 
in  the  act  of  springing  upon  his  too  vividly-imagined  foe  ? 
And  who  has  not  recognized  the  shamefacedness  with 
which  he  mutely  apologizes  to  his  human  audience  for 
having  yielded  to  such  unreal  folly?  No  one  will  claim 
that  the  animal  possesses  a  reasoning  soul,  however  much 


IN   DEEPER   DREAMLAND  143 

we  may  be  inclined  to  believe  the  germ  of  this  to  be  pres- 
ent. Analogy  would  certainly  indicate  that  man  in  the 
dreaming  state  is  but  an  animal ;  and  this  brings  us  direct- 
ly to  the  point  from  which  we  must  study  dreams,  if  we 
would  study  them  intelligently.  For  thus  early  are  we 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  unavoidable  deduction  that 
man  must  be  a  soul  occupying,  or  incarnated  in,  an  animal 
body,  from  which,  for  reasons  which  are  no  doubt  purely 
physical,  and  governed  by  alternating  cycles  of  fatigue  and 
rest,  or  waste  and  repair,  he  retires  during  its  sleeping 
periods,  leaving  the  body  but  a  superior  kind  of  sleeping 
animal  which  re-enacts,  but  confuses  and  distorts,  the 
events  of  its  waking  life. 

The  technique  of  this  retiring  of  the  soul  from  the  body 
need  not  here  concern  us.  The  separation  is  evidently 
only  partial,  and  involves  the  mere  receding  of  the  soul  to 
those  inner  or  ethereal  states  of  matter  upon  which  the 
outer  or  molecular  body  must  rest — unless  we  take  the 
onphiloeophica]  position  that  there  is  nothing  behind 
physical  matter,  which  would  then  become  a  kind  of 
material  atlas,  supporting  the  world  of  sentient  existence 
with  no  foundation  for  its  own  feet.  Assuming,  then,  for 
the  time,  that  this  relation  of  soul  to  body  is  true,  let  us 
abandon  the  field  of  these  plainly  animal  dreams,  and 
seek  in  deeper  dreamland  for  further  light  upon  the  mys- 
tery of  conscious  existence. 

Accepting,  for  the  present,  the  provisionary  hypothesis 
that  man  is  a  soul  occupying  an  animal  body,  the  study  of 
these  deeper  dreaming  states  becomes  merely  the  tracing 
of  the  direct  or  indirect  action  or  influence  of  the  soul 
upon  its  brain  and  body,  even  though  the  latter  be  asleep. 
This  hypothesis  also  recognizes  the  necessity,  philosophi- 
cally, of  the  continuous  existence  of  the  soul,  whether  its 


144  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

physical  body  be  sleeping  or  waking.  It  further  recognizes 
the  fact  that  the  evolution,  or  widening  of  the  conscious 
area  of  the  soul's  experiences,  may  go  on  upon  more  than 
one  plane,  and  under  more  than  one  mode,  at  the  same 
time.  Thus  there  may  be  a  parallel  evolution  to  the 
physical  proceeding  upon  an  inner  plane,  or  state  of  mat- 
ter, simultaneously  with  this,  and  which  utilizes  the  ap- 
parently wasted  period  spent  in  sleep.  Something  of  this 
kind  is  actually  taught  by  Eastern  philosophies,  for  these 
maintain  that  evolution  takes  a  much  wider  sweep  than  is 
contemplated  by  Western  theories.  Besides  material  evo- 
lutiim,  or  that  of  molecular  matter,  the  former  predicate! 
a  similar  process  resulting  in  the  acquiring  of  self-con- 
sciousness under  other  and  inner  material  conditions.  The 
soul  In  its  evolutionary  progress,  they  teach,  has  acquired 
self-consciousness  under  molecularly-material  conditions; 
it  li  in  the  process  of  acquiring  this  in  atomic-material 
states.  If  the  next  inner,  but  still  material,  plane  be 
termed  astral,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  then  the  soul 
must  there  perfect  organs  capable  of  projecting  exterior 
vibrations  interiorly  perceived  into  an  exteriorized  world, 
in  a  manner  analogous  to  its  method  of  sensuous  percep- 
tion and  subsequent  exteriorization  of  nature  in  this  state 
of  existence.  It  would  appear  that  it  is  already  beginning 
to  do  this,  and  that  these  deeper  dreams  are  the  tirst  evi- 
dences of  the  fact. 

Who  has  not  in  dreams  become  conscious  that  he  was 
dreaming?  Yet,  here  enters  a  factor  entirely  new,  which 
quite  removes  this  class  from  the  ordinary,  or  sensuous 
dream.  The  influence  of  the  soul  is  beginning  to  be  felt; 
evolution  is  proceeding  in  this  inner  matter ;  and  an  inner, 
or  astral,  set  of  organs  are  feebly  commencing  to  function, 
in  a  manner  similar  to  the  uncertain  steps  of  a  child 


IN   DEEPER   DREAMLAND  145 

learning  to  walk.  And  this  power  to  recognize  that  one  is 
dreaming  is  callable  of  quick  and  immense  expansion.  So 
very  little  training  is  required  that  one  is  almost  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  next  step  in  astral  evolution  is 
very  much  closer  at  hand  than  the  ordinary  individual 
suspects.  Whether  or  not  this  be  so,  recognition  of  the 
dreaming  state  by  dreamers  is  comparatively  common. 
Fully  developed,  it  constitutes  a  class  which  may,  for 
descriptive  purposes,  be  termed  waking  dreams. 

As  far  as  the  personal  experience  of  the  writer  goes, 
these  waking  dreams  nearly  always  supervene  upon  the 
ordinary  kind.  That  is,  one  will  be  dreaming  quite  a  com- 
monplace and,  it  may  chance,  senseless  dream,  when 
there  will  take  place  a  kind  of  inner  awakening.  The 
realization  that  one  is  dreaming  will  come,  simultaneously 
with  which  confused  or  commonplace  occurrences  will  as- 
sume a  vividness  and  reality  placing  them  far  above  ordin- 
ary dream  events,  while  the  scenery  or  other  environ- 
ments of  the  dreamer  will  become  flooded  with  light,  as  a 
cloudy  landscape  might  if  the  sun  were  to  pour  its  full 
glory  upon  it.  The  cessation  of  this  waking  dream  is  a 
sensation  of  yielding  to  an  overpowering  inclination  to 
sleep,  to  which,  struggle  as  the  delighted  dreamer  may,  he 
must  yield — to  find  himself  not  asleep,  as  the  sensation 
would  indicate,  but  awake  to  ordinary  humdrum  exist- 
ence. Or,  the  waking  dream  may  change  back  into  the 
ordinary  senseless  type  without  physical  awakening. 

The  writer  has  had  numerous  experiences  of  this  na- 
ture. Some  of  these,  if  not  instructive,  are  at  least 
curious  enough  to  warrant  description.  Before  doing  so, 
however,  it  must  be  premised  that  he  accepts  the  hypothe- 
sis that  the  class  of  dreams  under  present  consideration 
are  subjective;  are  very  largely,  if  not  wholly,  the  ere- 


146  THE   EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

ations  of  the  dreaming  imagination.  Believing  thus,  it 
chanced  that  in  a  waking  dream  a  young  man  was  pn 
upon  whom  he  was  performing  a  trifling  surgical  oper- 
ation. In  the  midst  of  this,  and  while  bandaging  an  in- 
jured but  apparently  very  real  arm,  he  remarked  to  the 
young  man:  "Look  here,  do  you  know  that  I  created 
you?" 

Upon  another  occasion,  the  writer  attempted  to  cross 
a  small  stream  by  means  of  the  prostrate  trunk  of  a  tree, 
which  unfortunately  reached  but  part  way  over.  Instead 
of  turning  back  when  this  was  noticed,  he,  recogni/in- 
that  he  was  master  of  the  situation,  simply  willed  that  the 
log  should  touch  the  farther  bank,  which  it  forthwith  did, 
and  the  stream  was  passed.  It  will  be  admitted  that 
whether  the  subjective  theory  of  dream  be  true  or  not,  it 
is  a  most  comfortable  one  to  hold  when  dreaming! 

Certain  of  these  waking  dreams  would  indicate  that 
there  is  at  times  a  partial  and,  perhaps,  imperfect  ex- 
teriorization accomplished  by  the  dreaming  ego,  in  which 
purely  subjective  creations  are  intermingled  with  real  ob- 
jects, and  even  persons  normally  present,  such  persons 
being  either  themselves  dreaming  or  otherwise.  Thus 
upon  one  occasion,  finding  himself  in  this  state,  the 
writer  resolved  to  go  to  New  York,  and,  further,  to  find  a 
certain  friend  there.  Never  having  visited  that  city,  how- 
ever, he  had  not  the  slightest  clue  of  his  friend's  resi- 
dence. Success  apparently  attended  both  efforts,  for  he 
found  himself  in  New  York,  and  in  a  residence  the  de- 
scription of  which,  as  afterwards  verified,  corresponded 
accurately  with  that  of  the  friend  he  was  seeking.  The 
friend  came  forward  to  greet  him,  clad  in  a  very  peculiar, 
shaggy  and  warm  overcoat.  (In  San  Francisco  where  the 
dreamer  was  it  was  warm,  which  makes  this  circumstance 


IN    DEEPER   DREAMLAND  147 

more  remarkable).  Now  a  very  odd  thing  was  that  the 
friend  had  no  such  overcoat,  but  confessed  to  having  re- 
peatedly seen  in  a  clothier's  window,  and  to  have  wished 
to  possess,  the  exact  counterpart  of  the  one  which  he  had 
apparently  appropriated  in  the  dream  ! 

Such  dreams  as  that  just  related  leave  it  quite  an  open 
question  in  the  mind  of  the  writer  whether  or  not  real 
entities  may  be  seen  in  this  class  of  dreams.  Do  we  not 
all  live  a  double  life  —  a  waking  and  a  dreaming,  which  as 
has  been  said,  are  not  correlated  ?  Besides. this  instance, 
the  writer  once  awakened  to  find  himself  in  the  very  large 
park  adjoining  his  own  city — San  Francisco.  Here  he 
met  two  young  ladies,  one  of  whom  he  accosted  and  asked 
her  to  give  him  her  place  of  residence  so  that  he  might  be 
able  to  verify  it  in  the  morning  ;  he  fully  recognizing  the 
fact  that  he  was  dreaming.  This  in  a  most  naturally 
modest  manner  she  hesitated  to  do,  but  upon  being  urged, 
and  the  reason  for  the  request  made  plain  to  her,  she 
yielded  so  far  as  to  admit  that  her  name  was  Mott,  and 
that  she  was  visiting  friends  living  upon  Ellis  street.  The 
writer  begged  earnestly  for  the  exact  number,  but  while 
she  hesitated  the  familiar  and  overpowering  sensation  of 
sleepiness  came  upon  him,  and  he  awakened  before  ob- 
taining the  coveted  information.  From  the  manner  of 
the  young  lady,  he  is  certain  that  she  at  least  had  no  idea 
that  the  occurrence  was  a  dream,  until  she  awakened  and 
found  it  so — providing  always  that  it  all  was  anything 
more  than  his  own  dreaming  imagination. 

Certain  of  these  dreams  would  seem  to  be  quite  under 
the  sway  of  both  conscience  and  reason,  showing  that  the 
true  soul  was  cognizant  of,  if  not  actually  concerned  in, 
them.  Thus  in  one  the  writer  was  approached  and  solicit- 
ed to  accompany  as   pretty  and  bright  a  bevy  of  young 


148  THE   EVIDENCE  OF   IMMORTALITY 

houris  as  heart  could  wish  for;  but  deliberately  turned 
away  from  them.  Upon  another  occasion  this  temptation 
was  repeated,  except  that  there  was  but  one  female,  and 
the  look  of  sarcastic,  tempting  derision  upon  her  fascin- 
atingly beautiful  features  will  not  soon  be  forgotten.  Also 
in  still  another,  in  which  the  dreamer  was  riding  in  the 
midst  of  a  most  bright  and  beautiful  landscape,  his  horse 
chanced  to  stumble.  In  what  would  have  been  a  very 
normal  waking  pet,  the  writer  swore  at  him,  when  the 
landscape  instantly  changed  from  its  previous  golden 
brightness  in  a  most  remarkable  manner,  the  gloom  ap- 
pearing to  close  in  from  all  sides  until  visible  objects  had 
disappeared  except  for  a  very  few  feet  in  the  Immediate 
vicinity.  This  seemed  to  be  a  purely  mechanical  effect  of 
the  disturbance  of  the  ether  by  vibrations  set  up  by  the 
oath,  much  as  the  transparency  of  a  pool  is  destroyed 
when  a  stone  is  thrown  in  it;  and,  if  a  real  occurrence,  il- 
lustrates how  a  Beamingly  trifling  fit  of  anger  o*  other 
passion  destroys  the  tranquility  of  the  soul's  physical 
mirror,  the  brain,  and  annuls  all  possibility  of  the  per- 
ception of  higher  things. 

Once  the  dreaming  consciousness  accustoms  itself  to 
this  inner  awakening,  it  is  curious  to  observe  how  accur- 
ately it  will  carry  over  any  information  bearing  upon  this 
state  which  it  learns  in  waking  life.  Thus  in  the  case  of 
being  annoyed  by  certain  elementals,  the  writer  had  been 
told  that  a  violent  blow  from  an  imaginary  sword  would 
effectively  dispose  of  them.  And  it  chanced,  it  may  be 
because  of  this  information,  that  in  another  waking  dream 
he  was  attacked  by  a  grotesque  figure,  very  much  resem- 
bling a  Chinaman,  which  was  armed  with  a  formidable 
sword.  Remembering  his  instruction,  he  advanced  boldly 
and  struck  it  a  swinging  blow  with  another  sword,  which 


IN   DEEPER  DREAMLAND  149 

even  in  the  dream  was  entirely  imaginary.  The  imp 
curled  up  in  death,  with  a  curious  expression  of  having 
been  vanquished  by  superior  knowledge,  for  which  it  bore 
not  the  slightest  malice.  Yet  the  dreamer  promptly  se- 
cured the  sword  of  his  vanquished  foe,  with  the  remark 
to  himself  that  imaginary  swords  were  well  enough  in 
their  way,  but  if  he  had  to  do  any  more  fighting  he  pre- 
ferred a  real  one ! 

Often  in  these  deeper  dreams  knowledge  superior  to 
that  of  the  dreamer  seems  to  be  possessed  by  his  drama- 
tized creations,  just  as  in  the  case  of  ordinary  dreams. 
Thus  the  writer  had  puzzled  for  a  long  time  over  a  knotty 
metaphysical  problem,  when  in  a  waking  dream  he 
chanced  to  meet  a  supposed  Hindu  yogi.  The  question 
being  referred  to  him,  he  promptly  decided  directly  oppo- 
site to  the  view  held  by  the  writer  when  awake,  and 
which  decision,  upon  further  study  and  investigation, 
proved  to  be  correct,  although  it  was  months  before  the 
writer  was  able  to  solve  by  his  reason  the  problem  which 
his  own  dreaming  creation  had  decided  instantly.  Such 
instances,  as  before  remarked,  raise  the  question  whether 
or  not  real  entities  may  be  encountered  in  these  dreaming 
conditions.  If  this  is  not  so,  they  point  conclusively  to 
the  fact  that  the  soul,  even  when  partially  disembodied  in 
dreams,  possesses  powers  far  transcending  its  normal 
waking  capacities.  They  also  seem  to  prove  the  theory, 
maintained  in  Eastern  metaphysics,  that  the  soul  is  a 
divine  being  whose  proper  habitation  is  upon  planes  of 
pure  thought,  and  that  by  incarnating  in  these  molecular- 
ly-constructed  bodies  it  loses  almost  wholly  its  divine 
reasoning  powers,  and  is  thus  swayed  by  the  passions  of  a 
body,  with  which  this  very  loss  causes  it  to  ignorantly 
identify  itself. 


150  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

In  fact,  dreams  show  by  their  gradings  into  classes  in 
which  the  conscience  and  reason  slowly  emerge  from  an 
entirely  reasonless  and  conscienceless  condition,  that  the 
relation  of  the  soul  to  the  body  is  one  very  far  from  being 
fixed  by  any  hard  and  fast  line.  The  point  of  union  is 
unquestionably  the  line  of  unstable  equilibrium,  pointed 
out  by  Herbert  Spencer,  along  which  all  evolutionary 
progress  must  take  place.  Upon  this  subjective  and  mys- 
terious battlefield  the  real  contest  of  eternity  is  waged, 
and  whatever  dominion  over  matter  mind  possesses  has 
been  won  in  a  silent  conflict  maintained  throughout  ages 
whose  duration  .the  mind  itself  in  its  incarnate  state 
fairly  reels  if  it  attempts  to  grasp.  And  this  point  is 
eternally  varying,  in  both  dreaming  and  waking  states. 
Eastern  wisdom  avers  that  spirit,  or  consciousness,  and 
matter  are  but  aspects  of  an  Absolute  Unity,  with  which 
it  makes  no  attempt  to  deal  for  the  very  good  reason  that 
finite  minds  can  not  comprehend  infinite  problems.  But, 
granting  these  two  aspects,  it  holds  that  matter  passes  by 
an  uninterrupted  gradation  to  states  which  to  ether  are  as 
the  latter  is  to  granite.  And  all  of  these  inner  material 
conditions  are  present  in  man  as  well  as  in  every  object  in 
nature,  for  each  object  of  whatever  kind  rests  upon  some 
material  cause  from  its  material  aspect,  and  upon  a  con- 
scious cause,  from  this  aspect;  these  two  final  causes 
blending  in  the  Absolute  itself.  It  thus  rejects  entirely 
the  theory  that  there  are,  or  can  be,  disconnected  objects 
in  the  universe  which  exist  aimlessly  in  space,  and 
which  have  no  root  in,  or  hold  upon,  the  divine. 

At  any  rate,  the  corollary  that  the  mind  uses  differing 
material  vehicles  in  its  varying  relations  with  the  body,  is 
borne  out  very  strongly  by  the  phenomena  of  dream  as 
will  as  those  of  waking  life.     In  the  ordinary  senseless 


IN   DEEPER   DREAMLAND  151 

dream  the  thinking  soul  has  abandoned  nearly  all  relation 
to  molecular  matter,  and  man  is  a  dreaming  animal.  As 
the  dreams  become  more  reasonable  the  soul  is  approach- 
ing more  and  more  to  its  normal  relations  with  the  body. 
We  at  once  can  see  how  under  passion  and  desire  it  would 
be  driven  from  one  material  vehicle  to  another,  until  at 
last  it  is  compelled  by  the  very  violence  of  the  passion 
to  loose  all  control  over  its  animal  associate,  which  then 
does  those  passionate  and  unreasoning  deeds  at  which  in 
its  normal  condition  the  soul  sickens.  The  dream  in 
which  the  landscape  closed  in  and  was  blotted  out  by  an 
angry  word  well  illustrates  this.  And  one  can  perceive 
that  once  consciousness  in  dream  is  attained  how  much 
superior  must  its  sleeping  tranquility  and  hushed  passions 
be  to  the  proper  functioning  of  the  soul  than  the  tornado 
of  waking  life. 

Among  these  deeper  dreams  must  be  classed  those 
which  distinctly  foretell  events;  especially  dreams  of 
premonition  or  warning.  Thousands  might  be  instanced  ; 
let  a  single  one  suffice  for  an  example.  A  father  living  in 
Oakland,  a  suburb  of  San  Francisco,  dreamed  that  his 
son,  a  small  lad,  was  drowned.  So  vivid  was  the  impres- 
sion created  that  he  refused  to  go  to  work  the  next  morn- 
ing until  the  boy  had  given  his  word  not  to  go  upon  the 
water  that  day.  Later  on  the  lad  succeeded  in  convincing 
his  mother  that  his  father's  fears  were  foolish,  went  out 
boating  and  was  drowned.  The  father  in  his  dream  had 
seen  the  lifeless  body  dragged  into  a  boat — doubtless 
a  merely  dream-dramatized  detail,  as  the  body  was  not 
recovered. 

If,  as  these  higher  dreams  seem  to  show,  there  is  in 
man  a  soul  superior  to  and  independent  of  his  body,  then 
it  can  easily  happen  that  a  strange,  unaccountable  dream 


152  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

may  be  a  page  torn  from  the  records  of  a  former  and  for- 
gotten life.  For  there  can  be  no  effect  without  its  ante- 
cedent cause,  and,  therefore,  every  dream  must  arise  in 
some  actual  experience  in  consciousness.  Therefore, 
science  correctly  enough  finds  in  the  ordinary  sense  dream 
a  confused  recalling  of  the  thoughts  and  scenes  of  the 
waking  hours.  But  when  a  connected,  sequential  dream 
happens  which  from  its  very  nature  could  not  have  had  its 
basis  in  thoughts,  acts,  or  in  the  environments,  even,  of 
this  life,  it  is  but  logical  to  presume  that  it  is  the  living 
over  and  re-enacting  of  some  strongly  impressed  detail  of 
a  forgotten  one.  In  dream,  then,  might  often  be  found 
the  thread  of  Ariadne  by  means  of  which  we  may  grope 
our  way  into  the  labyrinths  of  an  otherwise  buried 
pre-existence. 

There  are  many  by-paths  in  dreamland  into  which  one 
would  delight  to  wander,  but  these  are  forbidden  because 
interminable.  There  is,  however,  a  lesson  to  be  learned 
from  dreams  which  must  not  be  overlooked.  That  is,  that 
in  every  dream  there  is  an  entity  which  dreams  tliat 
dream.  No  one  will  admit  that  it  is  himself  in  his  nor- 
mal state  which  dreams  senseless  or  vicious  dreams. 
They  are  accredited  in  some  vague  manner  to  the  imagina- 
tion when  divorced,  in  some  equally  mysterious  manner, 
from  reason  and  conscience.  But  even  the  study  of 
dream  shows  that  the  soul  can  take  no  part  in  these ;  t hat- 
it  is  independent  of  and  most  probably  away  from  the 
body  when  they  occur.  Then,  taking  into  consideration 
the  unquestioned  fact  that  animals  dream,  it  logically 
follows  that  such  low  dreams  are  the  work  of  the  human 
brain  alone,  and  whether  we  relegate  the  causes  of  them 
to  external  or  internal  stimuli,  automatism,  or  what  not, 
the  fact  remains  that  some  entity  that  must  be  consciem  ■•  - 


N I V  ERSITY 

IN    DEEPER    DREAMLAND  153 

less  and  unreasoning  perceive  and  records  them.  It  can- 
not be  the  reasoning  soul  or  moral  and  rational  distinc- 
tions would  be  made.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of  nothing  per- 
ceiving something,  yet  this  is  the  strait  to  which  we  are 
reduced  unless  we  accept  the  fact  that  some  entity  dis- 
tinctly below  the  human  plane  —  reason  and  conscience 
both  being  absent — dreams  these  dreams. 

And  that  this  is  the  fact  one  experience  of  the  writer 
strongly  indicates.  In  awakening  from  a  dream  upon  a 
certain  occasion,  the  real  I  of  the  writer  seemed  to  be  in 
the  attitude  of  a  spectator  so  far  as  its  relation  to  the 
body  was  concerned,  and  for  a  brief  moment  watched  in 
wondering  awe  the  process  of  a  dream  which  was  then 
actually  occurring.  There  appeared  to  be  an  entity  like 
to  his  body  in  appearance,  engaged  in  active  thought,  and 
in  some  incomprehensible  manner  these  thoughts  ap- 
peared to  be  thrown  upon  the  brain  as  pictures,  and 
which  pictured  thought  constituted  the  dream.  The 
process  of  dream  would  seem  to  be  similar  to  a  magic 
lantern  entertainment,  except  that  the  presence  of  the 
operator  in  the  dream  is  not  suspected. 

The  inference  is  plain  and  unavoidable,  in  view  of  the 
above  study,  that  man  would  seem  to  be  associated  with 
an  animal  body  in  which  is  enthroned  an  animal  entity 
similar  in  nature  to  other  entities  in  the  animal  kingdom. 
This  association  is  neither  idle  nor  fortuitous;  it  occurs 
under  the  universal  law  of  cause  and  effect,  and  one  can 
easily  imagine  its  object  to  be  the  slowly  lifting  up  of  the 
lower  entity  into  the  human  or  reasoning  condition,  while 
at  the  same  time  an  almost  infinite  amount  of  experience, 
with  its  resulting  wisdom,  is  gained  by  the  food  for  thought 
afforded  a  purely  thinking  soul  during  its  experiences 
while  thus  incarnated  among  entities  entirely  below  it, 


154  THE   EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

and  in  whom  -the  ruling  principal  is  desire.  The  further 
thought  is  also  forced  upon  one  that,  as  this  association  is 
not,  or  can  not  be,  under  the  laws  of  nature,  fortuitous, 
jt  has  persisted  during  perhaps  innumerable  lives  in  the 
past  and  must  so  persist  in  future  ones,  which  doctrine 
is  the  very  essence  of  the  fact,  and  the  reason  for,  reincar- 
nation. Therefore,  in  the  most  senseless  and  vicious 
dreams  may  be  read  the  record  of  the  impressions  which 
man's  mind  has  imparted  to  his  unreasoning  associate. 
In  them  one  may  learn  the  precise  point  to  which  he 
would  descend  were  his  soul  to  desert,  him,  and  may  also 
test  how  pure  and  unselfish  his  thoughts  are  upon  interior 
planes  of  which  no  one  knows,  or  can  catch  even  a 
glimpse,  except  his  own  soul.  The  real  morality  of  the 
waking  ego  is  undoubtedly  reflected  in  the  dreaming  one, 
and  he  who  habitually  dreams  cruel  or  immoral  dreams 
may  be  sure  that  these  taint,  it  may  be  all  ansuspected, 
the  garments  of  his  soul,  and  that  it  would  1m-  well  to  set 
about  living  that  life  ami  thinking  those  thoughts  that 
would  render  it  impossible  for  his  lower  self  to  dream 
such  dreams.  For  even  admitting  the  fact  that  most  of 
these  are  dramatizations  of  some  external  (a  noise)  or 
internal  (indigestion)  stimuli,  yet  the  sequence  of  that 
dramatization  will  depend  entirely  upon  the  real  ten- 
dencies of  the  hidden  mind  of  each  individual.  Thus 
a  drop  of  water  falling  upon  the  face  of  two  individuals 
will  be  dramatized  in  the  one  into  storm  and  ship- 
wreck, it  maybe,  while,  to  the  other,  they  will  unfold 
into  the  dramatization  of  the  scenes  of  one  of  the  Roman 
baths  of  old.  Let  me  repeat  it ;  each  one  may  form  a  cor- 
rect estimate  of  the  general  tendencies,  moral  or  other- 
wise, of  his  mind  by  the  careful  study  of  even  his  most 
absurd  dreams.    For,  in  the  case  of  the  writer  the  delight 


IN   DEEPER   DREAMLAND  155 

of  the  dreaming  entity,  thus  caught  in  the  act  of  dream- 
ing while  the  real  I  was  away  from  the  body,  was  intense, 
but  still  animal-like  in  nature.  So  strong  was  it,  that  the 
writer  no  longer  wonders  at  men  yielding  to  sensuous 
gratifications  urged  upon  them  by  their  animal  associate. 
He  must  have  a  strong  will  who  can  sternly  forbid  and 
tit  the  projecting  of  unclean  images  into  his  brain- 
mincL 

One  point  more.  Some  will  say  they  never  dream. 
Change  this  into  "they  never  remember  their  dreams," 
and  it  will  be  correct.  Remembering  dreams  is  a  habit 
easily  cultivated.  The  scientist  reads  a  book  and  remem- 
bers all  its  details ;  the  child  reads  a  novel,  and  recalls  it 
vividly,  while  the  blase  man  or  woman  will  cram  novel 
after  novel  without  being  able  to  recall  anything  unless  re- 
read. The  scientist  deliberately,  though  unconsciously, 
it  may  be,  wills  to  impress  his  mind  with  what  he  reads  ; 
the  child  is  interested.  This  is  the  clue.  Become  inter- 
tied  in  your  dreams,  and  try  to  remember  them,  and  you 
will  find  the  fact  following  upon  the  heels  of  the  wish. 


APPENDIX   II 


THE  WORLD'S  CRUCIFIED   SAVIOURS 

THE  principal  object  of  the  Universal  Brotherhood  or- 
ganization being  to  establish  the  fact  that  men  are 
brothers  in  the  fullest  sense  that  the  term  con- 
notes, it  will  be  at  once  evident  that  to  reconcile  religious 
beliefs  must  prove  a  most  important  means  to  this  end. 
No  wars  are  so  bitter  as  those  fought  under  the  banners  of 
differing  faiths;  no  quarrel  so  vindictive  as  that  where 
each  antagonist  believes  himself  to  be  defending  truth 
and  God  against  error  and  blasphemy. 

It  can  be  demonstrated  beyond  peradventure  that  all 
religious  faiths  and  beliefs  have  a  common  ancestry — are 
all  the  offspring  of  an  old  Wisdom  Religion,  which,  in 
these  later  days,  has  become  known  under  the  title  of 
Theosophy,  or,  literally,  the  "Wisdom  of  the  Gods."  It 
is  said  by  the  Wise  Ones  that  this  Wisdom  Religion  was 
originally  taught  to  this  humanity  in  its  infancy  by  beings 
from  other  spheres  who  had  passed  through  that  arc  of 
the  Cycle  of  Necessity  which  we  are  now  treading,  and 
because  of  this  knew  whereof  they  taught.  Certain  it  is 
that  a  very  brief  examination  of  comparative  religion  will 
demonstrate  that  a  time  when  the  gods  (or  God)  walked 
with  men  was  a  matter  of  universal  belief.  Jehovah 
walking  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  is  only  one,  and  a  com- 


THE  WORLD'S   CRUCIFIED   SAVIOURS  157 

paratively  recent,  variant  of  an  account  to  be  found  in 
the  mythology  of  every  religion.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  original  source  of  the  teaching  it  is  absolutely 
certain  that  every  religion  worthy  of  the  name  descends 
from  this  archaic  parentage.  No  unbiassed  student  will 
deny  this  for  a  moment.  Modern  science  and  materialistic 
philosophy  make  of  the  evident  one-ness  of  pagan  myth 
and  Christian  teaching  their  strongest  argument  for  dis- 
crediting the  divine  source  of  any  and  all  religions. 

But  this  agreement,  while  a  stumbling  block  to  the 
narrow-minded  sectarian  who  would  compel  all  men  to  ac- 
cept his  faith,  however  illogical,  and  to  the  materialist 
who  recognizes  nothing  divine  in  any  religion,  becomes  an 
all-compelling  argument  to  him  who  seeks  to  unify  the 
race ;  to  prove  to  men  that  religion  is  a  common  heritage ; 
that  God  has  never  forgotten  the  world  !  While  the  dog- 
matist may  be  dismayed,  the  lover  of  the  race  will  be  re- 
joiced to  find  that  all  men  are  really  praying  to  the  same 
gods,  are  fighting  the  same  foes,  are  striving  for  the  same 
goals  of  purity  and  peace.  Each  new  link  forged,  each 
new  fact  dug  out  of  the  buried  records  of  the  past,  will  be 
to  him  a  new  joy,  for  it  brings  one  step  nearer  the  day 
when  men  shall  no  longer  face  each  other  in  fratricidal 
struggles  because  one  names  that  as  Jehovah  which  others 
know  as  Brahm,  Zeus,  or  Osiris ;  when  all  shall  be  so  wise 
that  they  will  no  longer  disagree  because  of  the  name  if 
the  inner  meaning  be  one. 

This  old  WLsdom  Religion  presents  as  a  basis  for  its 
philosophy  of  life  (for  what  is  any  religion  more  than 
this?)  certain  fundamental  concepts,  which  must  be  at 
least  briefly  studied  preparatory  to  showing  that  all  re- 
ligions root  in  these  teachings,  and  are  all  really  one  in  es- 
sence and  in  their  divine  origin.      These  are :     {a)  Evolm 


158  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

tion  conceived  of  in  such  wide,  deep,  and  universal  as- 
pects that  that  taught  by  modern  science  only  describes  a 
small  arc  of  its  infinite  and  perfect  circle,  (b)  That  the 
law  of  cause  and  effect  governs  every  plane  of  the  uni- 
verse physical,  mental,  moral,  or  spiritual.  (c)  Re- 
embodiment,  or  the  eternal  re-clothing  of  the  inner,  im- 
mutable, spiritual  essence  in  mutable,  material  forms,  and 
as  a  corollary,  the  re-birth  of  the  human  soul  in  Bl 
-i\f  bodies,  u/)  All  religions  proceed  from  a  common 
source;  have  their  origin  in  the  old,  universal  Wisdom 
Religion,  referred  to  before 

The  evolution  of  the  Wisdom  Religion  teaches  that 
spirit,  or  consciousness,  eternally  descends  into  matter, 
and  as  eternally  re-ascends  out  of  it  in  Immense  eye 
evolutionary  activity.  All  manifested  existence  proceeds 
in  cycles,  or  recurring  periods  of  objective  existence  in 
material  form  followed  by  subjective  arcs,  thus  maintain- 
ing the  continuity  of  life  unbroken.  In  the  heavens  are 
now  visible  worlds  in  every  stage  of  material  life-cy- 
from  the  nebulous,  through  the  fiery  sun  stage,  to  the  cool, 
habitable  (for  entities  clothed  in  flesh)  one  of  earth. 
Others  again  are  apparently  dead  and  re-embodying  their 
vitality  in  newer  planets,  as  has  the  moon;  or,  finally  be- 
coming so  ethereal  and  tenuous  that  they  can  no  longer 
be  seen  by  physical  means,  as  is  said  to  have  happened 
with  one  or  two  intra-Mercurial  planets.  The  objective  life- 
cycle  of  worlds  is  thus  plainly  written  in  the  strata  of  the 
heavens  making  up  the  abysses  of  visible  space  about  us. 

Descending  from  cosmos  to  earth  the  law  of  cyclic  life 
is  found  to  be  absolutely  unbroken.  It  is  seen  in  the  life 
and  death  of  man  ;  in  the  recurrence  of  night  and  day ;  of 
the  seasons;  in  all  the  phenomena  of  life.  As  this  ma- 
terial universe  must  proceed  from  the  Causeless  Cause,  it 


THE   WORLD'S   CRUCIFIED   SAVIOURS  159 

logically  follows  that  this  universally  imposed  limitation 
of  cycles  is  a  law  of  the  very  Absolute  unto  itself,  and  as 
such  imposed  upon  all  its  emanations. 

This  primal  and  perhaps  infinite  cycle  of  manifestation 
is  composed  of  an  almost  equally  infinite  number  of  lesser 
cycles.  So  it  must  happen  that  within  this  great  period 
will  always  be  found  worlds  in  every  stage  of  evolutionary 
activity.  In  our  own  system  the  sun  and  moon  represent 
uninhabitable  stages  —  at  least  for  such  beings  as  our- 
selves—  while  the  Earth  and  Venus  and  Mars,  probably, 
are  in  habitable  stages,  but  at  differing  arcs  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  their  humanities.  Therefore,  it  follows  that  there 
are  and  have  always  been  other  humanities  than  ours,  ma- 
tured and  perfected  upon  other  planets.  There  are  upon 
the  earth  no  two  individuals  at  exactly  the  same  stage  of 
their  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual  development,  and 
the  same  divergence,  only  in  greater  degrees,  marks  the 
different  humanities,  for,  as  stated  in  the  Secret  Doctrine, 
every  entity  in  the  universe  either  is,  was,  or  prepares  to 
become,  a  man.  These  humanities,  therefore,  which  have 
passed  beyond  our  condition  have  their  egos  at  varying 
stages  of  attainment,  and  the  less  advanced  are  able  to 
impart  their  wisdom  to  advanced  earth  egos.  That  is  to 
say,  that  nature  never  proceeds  by  leaps  nor  breaks  ;  and 
there  is  always  possible  that  interblendi  ig  and  intercom- 
munication between  egos  of  different  world  periods  which 
enables  past  humanities  to  teach  those  of  worlds  coming 
after  them.  Humanities  are  necessarily  in  relation, 
and  correspond,  to  the  ordinary  human  family.  Upon 
the  accumulated  wisdom  and  experience  of  the  parents, 
the  children  have  a  lawful  lien,  and  in  like  manner  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  parents  and  elder  brothers  of  this  race  to 
impart  to  it  their  wisdom. 


160  THE    EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

The  Wisdom  Religion  then,  comes  from  and  is  the  heir- 
loom of  our  humanity  from  a  humanity  which  has  ]  n 
through  these  material  stages,  and  which  has  transmit- 
ted   to   us    as    our    heritage   their  knowlegde    thus    ac- 
quired. 

The  religious  instinct  is  innate  and  universal,  for  each 
ego  at  the  beginning  of  its  human  experience  has  had  im- 
pressed upon  it  this  Primal  "Wisdom.  Besides  this,  man 
retains  a  certain  memory  or  reminiscence  of  a  divine  state 
which  he  baa  lost  by  his  fall  into  matter.  The  faint  mem- 
ory, the  far-off  reminiscence,  of  this  state  persists  in  us  to- 
day, and  lies,  it  may  be,  at  the  bottom  of  every  effort  to 
attain  to  something  purer,  truer  and  higher  than  man 
now  is.  For  this  reason  even  the  religion  of  a  Bushman  is 
to  be  respected.  It  expresses  the  desire  of  his  soul  to  re- 
gain a  lost  spiritual  condition,  the  memory  of  which  still 
unconsciously  haunts  him. 

One  of  the  strongest  evidences  of  all  religions  having 
this  common  origin,  is  the  myth  (and  truth)  of  a  crucified 
Saviour.  This  is  an  universal  myth.  The  cross  itself  is  the 
most  ancient  symbol  existing.  On  the  cosmic  plane  it  is  a 
symbol  of  the  descent  of  spirit  into  matter;  on  the  hu- 
man, of  man '8  soul,  fallen  and  incarnated  in  a  fleshly 
body. 

The  cross  has  never  been  anything  else  but  a  symbol. 
There  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence  to  show  that  there  has 
ever  been  a  Saviour  really  crucified,  all  these  myths  to 
the  contrary,  notwithstanding.  The  niyth  means,  and 
means  only,  that  the  soul  of  man  is  crucified  in  the 
fleshly  desires  and  appetites  of  its  sensuous  body,  and  not 
that  any  particular  Saviour  has  suffered  death  in  this 
manner. 

In  reference  to  this,  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  Euse- 


THE  WORLD  S  CRUCIFIED  SAVIOURS  161 

bius,1  one  of  the  early  Christian  Bishops,  declares,  upon 
the  authority  of  the  martyr,  Polycarp,  that  it  was  ac- 
cepted among  all  the  early  church  Fathers  that  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  was  never  crucified,  but  on  the  contrary  lived  to 
be  fifty  years  of  age.  But  crucifixion  is  not  the  only 
key  to  the  Saviour  legends.  All  our  souls  may  be  said  to 
be  crucified  in  the  flesh,  while  the  origin  of  these  Saviour 
myths,  is  either  the  voluntary  descent  and  incarnation  of 
high  souls  of  former  humanities,  or  the  equally  voluntary 
relinquishment  of  glorious  spiritual  states  won,  by  ad- 
vanced souls  of  this  humanity  who  reincarnate  at  times 
of  great  spiritual  debasement.  To  thus  save  humanity 
by  restoring  lost  spiritual  truths,  is  the  meaning  which 
runs  through  all  these  myriad  stories  of  crucified  Saviors. 

It  is  the  meaning,  certainly,  which  the  early  Christians 
gave  to  the  crucifixion  of  Christ.  If  he  were  really  cruci- 
fied, contemporary  history  ought  to  have  noted  it.  The 
Jewish  historian,  Josephus,  was  a  bitter  opponent  of  his 
kinsman,  Herod,  and  recorded  all  his  wicked  acts  and  it  is 
not  reasonable  that  he  would  have  omitted  to  mention  in 
this  connection  such  a  remarkable  occurrence  as  the  mas- 
sacre of  infants. 

There  is  no  Christian  teaching  which  has  not  been  an- 
ticipated by  other  teachers  long  previous  to  the  era  of 
Christ.  Especially  does  the  story  of  a  crucified  Saviour 
appear  in  all  histories  or  legends  of  great  religions. 
There  are  historical  accounts,  allusions,  or  legends  of  the 
following  crucifixions : 2 


1  Iremeus. 

2  This  list  of  Saviours  is  from  the  "World's  Crucified  Saviours,"  by 
Kersey  Graves,  from  which  work  many  of  the  authorities  mentioned 
are  quoted, 


162  THE   EVIDENCE  OF   IMMORTALITY 

^hrishna,  of  India,  1200  years  B.  C. 

2Sakia  of  Hindustan,  600  years  B.  C. 

"Thammuz,  of  Syria,  1100B.  C. 

4  Wittoba,  the  Telingonese,  552  B.  C. 

6Iao,  of  Nepaul,  622  B.C. 

•Hesus,  of  Great  Britain,  834  B.  C. 

'Quexalcote,  of  Mexico,  587  B.  C. 

8Quirinus,  of  Rome,  506  B.  C. 

•Prometheus,  of  Greece,  547  B.  C. 
10Thulis,  of  Egypt,  1700  B.C. 
"Ir.dra,  of  Thibet,  728  B.C. 
u  Alcestos,  of  Greece,  600  B.  C. 
18  Atys,  of  Phrygia,  1170  B.  C. 
14Crite,  of  Chaldea,  1200  B.  C. 
"Bali, Of  Ori-a,  725  B.  C. 
"Mithra,  of  \\ tm;,.  iiOOB.C. 

Other  Saviours  declared  to  have  been  crucified  also,  but 
the  date  of  which  event  is  Uncertain,  are:  Salvahana,  <>f 
Bermuda;  Osiris,  of  Egypt;  II<»rus,  of  Egypt;  Odin,  of 
Scandinavia;    Zoroaster,  of    Persia;  Baal,   of  Phoenicia; 


1  The  Hindu  Pantheon. 

2  Progress  of  Religious  Ideas. 

3  Ctesias.  quoted  in  Hig:  grins'  Anacalepsis. 

4  Anacalcpsis. 
6Georgrius. 

0  Anacalepsis. 

'Mexican  Antiquities. 

8  Iligrgrins*  Anacalepsis. 

<  i-a  and  Hesiod. 
•"Wilkison. 
llOeorgius. 

12  Anacalepsis. 

13  Anacalepsis. 

14  Anacalepsis. 
W  AnacMlt'i'^i-. 
18Faber  and  Bryant. 


THE  WORLD'S  CRUCIFIED   SAVIOURS  163 

Taut,  of  Phoenicia;  Bali,  of  Afghanistan;  Xamolxis,  of 
Thrace;  Zoar,  of  the  Bonzes;  Adad,  of  Assyria;  Deva 
Tat,  of  Siam  ;  Alcides,  of  Thebes  ;  Mikado,  of  the  Shintos  ; 
Beddru,  of  Japan ;  Thor,  of  the  Gauls ;  Cadmus,  of 
Greece ;  Hil  and  Feta,  of  the  Mandaites ;  Gentaut,  of 
Mexico,  and  several  others,  of  lesser  note. 

If  the  influence  of  the  World's  Saviours  upon  humanity 
be.  judged  by  their  present  following,  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that  Chrishna  has  400,000,000  adherents  ;  Christ,  200,- 
000,000;  Mahomet,  150,000,000;  Confucius,  120,000,000; 
and  Mithra,  50,000,000. 

Their  histories  are  strangely  similar ;  too  much  so  not 
to  have  been  derived  from  a  common  source.  Let  us  take 
as  a  type  that  of  Chrishna.1  It  is  said  of  him  that  his 
birth  was  foretold  ;  that  he  was  an  incarnate  God ;  his 
mother  a  virgin  ;  that  he  had  an  adopted  father  who  was 
a  carpenter;  that  there  was  rejoicing  on  earth  and  in 
heaven  at  his  birth  ;  that  his  mother's  name  was  Maia. 
He  was  born  in  obscurity  on  December  25th ;  was  vis- 
ited by  wise  men  and  shepherds  who  were  led  by  a 
star ;  was  warned  of  danger  by  an  angel ;  that  all  the 
children  near  his  birthplace  were  ordered  destroyed  in 
order  to  include  him ;  that  his  parents  fled  to  Mathura. 
(An  ancient  legend  states  that  Joseph  and  Mary  jour- 
neyed to  a  place  called  Mateira,  where  they  fled  from 
Herod  into  Egypt.)  He  had  a  forerunner  (Bali-Rama); 
was  wise  in  childhood ;  was  lost  and  searched  for  by  his 
parents  ;  had  other  brothers  ;  retired  to  solitude ;  fasted ; 
preached  a  noteworthy  sermon ;  was  entitled  a  Saviour, 
Redeemer,  Shepherd,  Lion  of  the  tribe  of  Sakia;  existed 


l"  Three     hundred    and    forty-six   Striking   Analogies   Between 
Christ  and  Chrishna,"  Loc  at. 


164  THE   EVIDENCE  OF  IMMORTALITY 

prior  to  birth ;  and  on  earth  and  in  heaven  at  the  same 
time;  was  both  human  and  divine;  did  miracles  of  which 
one  or  the  first  was  to  cure  a  leper ;  healed  all  manner  of 
diseases;  raised  the  dead ;  cast  out  devils;  had  apostles; 
reformed  the  existing  religion  ;  abolished  law  of  lineal  de- 
scent in  priesthood;  was  poor;  was  conspired  against;  de- 
nounced riches ;  meek  ;  unmarried  and  chaste ;  merciful ; 
associated  with  sinners ;  was  rebuked  for  it ;  befriended  a 
widow ;  met  a  gentle  woman  at  a  well ;  submitted  to  in- 
juries and  insults ;  was  a  practical  philanthropist;  had  a 
last  supper;  was  crucified  between  two  thieves  ;  darkness 
supervened;  descended  to  hell;  was  resurrected  after 
three  days  ;  and  seen  by  many  people. 

Again,  of  Quexalcote,1  the  Mexican  Saviour,  we  are 
told,  that  he  was  born  300  years  before  Christ  ;  of  a  spot- 
less virgin;  that  he  lived  a  life  of  humility  and  piety; 
retired  to  a  wilderness  and  fasted  forty  days;  was 
worshipped;  crucified  between  two  thieves;  descended  to 
hell  and  rose  again  the  third  day  ;  rode  on  an  ass  ;  forgave 
sin,  etc. 

As  it  will  be  impossible  in  the  short  space  of  a  chapter 
to  note  the  similar  important  incidents  in  the  life  of  each 
Saviour  separately,  merely  the  incident  will  be  noted,  ami 
under  it  grouped  all  the  Saviours  of  whom  there  is  trust- 
worthy evidence  of  that  particular  event  having  been  re- 
corded. Let  us,  then,  as  an  appropriate  beginning,  take 
the  prophecies  concerning  their  birth.  Under  this  head 
we  find  that  the  coming  to  earth  of  Chrishna,  Chang-Ti, 
Osiris,  Cadmus,  Quirinus,  and  Quexalcote  were  all  thus 
foretold,  while  prophecies  of  Saviours  run  through  nearly 


1  Mexican   Antiquities,    Vol.  VI,  Codex  Bonrianus.     Codex   Yati- 
canus. 


THE  WORLD'S  CRUCIFIED  SAVIOURS  165 

all  sacred  writings.  Thus  the  Vedas,  the  Chinese  Sacred 
Books,1  those  of  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome,  Mexico,  Arabia, 
Persia,  etc.,  contain  Messianic  prophecies.  Of  Saviors 
connected  in  some  manner  with  a  Serpent-symbol,  we 
have  Osiris,  spoken  of  as  having  bruised  the  serpent's 
head  after  it  had  bitten  his  heel ;  Hercules  is  represented 
with  his  heel  on  a  serpent's  head;  Chrishna  is  both 
pictured  and  sculptured  with  his  heel  on  a  serpent's 
head;  Persia  has  the  same  legend  to  the  effect  that 
Ormuzd  made  the  first  two  pure,  and  that  Ahriman  took  a 
serpent-form  in  order  to  tempt  them. 
Miraculous  conceptions  are  recorded  of: 

Plato,  who  was  said  to  have  been  a  son  of  Apollo ; 

Zoroaster,2  born  of  a  Ray  of  Divine  Wisdom ; 

Mars  and  Vulcan,  conceived  by  Juno ; 

Quexalcote,3  of  Suchiquetqual ; 

Yu,4  of  a  lily,  or  a  star ; 

Appolonius,5  of  Proteus ; 

Buddha,  of  Mahamaya ; 

Chrishna,  of  Yasoda,  by  Narayana. 

Jesus,  of  Mary,  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Of  Virgin  Mothers6  we  have: 

Yasoda,  mother  of  Chrishna  ; 

Maia,  of  Sakia; 

Celestine,  of  Zulis ; 

Chimalman,  of  Quexalcote; 

Semele,  of  Bacchus ; 
Prudence,  of  Hercules ; 

1  Martinus  —  "  History  of  China."    Halde— "  History  of  China." 

2  Malcolm—  "  History  of  Persia." 

3  Mexican  Antiquities,  Codex  Vaticanus. 
*  Tod—"  History  of  the  Rajahs." 

5  Philostratus. 

"  Hicreins—  Anacalepsis. 


166  THE   EVIDENCE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

Alcmene,  of  Alcides ; 

Shing-mon  of  Yu ; 

Mayence,  of  Hesus ; 

Mary,  of  Jesus. 
Angels,  shepherds,  magi,  etc.,  visited: 

1  Confucius, 

"Chrishna, 

8Sakia, 

'Mitlira. 

6  Pythagoras, 

•Zoroaster,  and  Jesus. 
The  births  of  many  were  preceded  by  the  appearance  of 
a  new  star,  and  occurred  upon  December  25th,  formerly 
the  beginning  of  the  new  year.      Of  those  to  whom  this 
date  is  specifically  assigned  we  have : 

Bacchus, 

Adonis, 

Chrishna, 

Chang-ti, 

Chris  (of  Chaldea), 

Mithra, 

Sakia, 

Jao  (of  Ancient  Britain),  and  Jesus. 
Jesus  is  often  poetically  spoken  of  as  the  Lamb  of  God. 
Other  nations  have  been  equally  poetical  in  the  titles  they 
have  given  their  particular  Saviour.    Thus  we  find  Chrish- 
na spoken  of  as  the  Holy  Lamb ;  Quexalcote,  as  the  Ram 


1  Five  Volumes. 

2  Ramayami. 

3  New  Covenant  Religion. 

4  History  of  Persia. 

5  Progress  of  Religious  Ideas. 

6  Aristotle  ami  Pliny. 


THE  WORLD'S  CRUCIFIED  SAVIOURS  167 

of  God ;  the  Celts  had  their  holy  Heifer ;  and  Egypt  its  sa- 
cred Bull. 

Of  Jesus  and  Chrishna  it  is  recorded  that  they  were 
born  in  caves,  for  the  manger  in  which  the  birth  of  the 
former  is  declared  to  have  occurred  was  hollowed  out  of  a 
hillside. 

Of  infants  threatened  by  hostile  rulers,  we  have: 

Bacchus, 

Romulus, 

Chrishna, 

Osiris, 

Zoroaster, 

Alcides, 

Yu, 

Rama, 

Indra, 

Salvahana,  and  Jesus. 
The  two  last  were  sons  of  carpenters.     (World  Build- 
ers?) 

The  Wisdom  Religion  affirms  that  there  are  seven  keys 
to  all  these  myths  according  as  we  read  them  in  a  hu- 
man, terrestrial,  cosmic,  or  other  sense.  To  turn  the  as- 
tronomical key  to  the  above,  we  find  that  Herod  means 
the  "Hero  of  the  Skin,"  or  Hercules,  and  that  the  Sun 
(Hercules)  enters  Gemimi  in  May.  Rachel  equals  Ramah, 
and  Ramah  means  the  Zodiac  in  both  Indian  and  Chal- 
dean astronomy.  Rachel  had  Joseph  and  Benjamin; 
Gemimi  has  two  stars.    He  who  runs  may  easily  read. 

Of  those  who  descended  into  hell  and  were  resurrected 
after  three  days,  we  have : 

Quexalcote, 

Chrishna, 

Quirinus, 


168  THE   EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

Prometheus, 

Osiris, 

Atys, 

Mithra, 

Chris,  and  Jesus. 
If  we  examine  the  doctrines  of  these  Saviours  we  shall 
find  the  same  close  analogy,  bespeaking  a  common 
origin!  that  the  "Religion  of  Jesus  Christ  is  neither 
new  nor  strange,"  as  was  asserted  by  Eusebius,  and  that 
St.  Augustine  was  quite  right  in  claiming  that:  "  This  in 
our  day  is  the  Christian  religion,  not  as  having  been  un- 
known in  former  times,  but  as  recently  having  received 
that  name." 

Among  other  resemblances  we  note  that  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  was  recognized  in  Brahmanism,  Zoroas- 
trianism,  and  in  the  religions  of  Chaldea,  China,  Mexico 
and  Greece.  Speaking  of  this  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
Bishop  Powell  declares:  "  I  not  only  confess  but  I  main- 
tain such  a  similarity  between  the  Trinity  of  Philo  and 
that  of  John  as  bespeaks  a  common  origin."  The  cere- 
mony of  the  Eucharist  was  also  observed  by  the  Essenes,. 
Persians,  Pythagoreans,  and  Gnostics  who  used  as  ele- 
ments bread  and  water.  It  also  was  recognized  an<l 
taught  by  the  Brahmanf  and  Mexicans.  St.  Justin  indig- 
nantly remarks  of  it :  "  And  this  very  solemnity  an  evil 
spirit  introduced  into  the  mysteries  of  Mithra."  The 
pious  Faber  also  laments  that:  "The  devil  led  the 
heathen  to  anticipate  Christ  in  several  things,  as  for  ex- 
ample, the  Eucharist."  Baptism  by  water,  fire,  air  or 
spirit,  was  a  portion  of  the  sacred  teachings  of  the  Ro- 
mans, Egyptians,  Zoroastrians,  Jews,  Hindus,  Greeks  and 
Chaldeans. 

Throughout  all,  and  the  golden  thread  which  is  the  re- 


THE   WORLD'S   CRUCIFIED   SAVIOURS  169 

ligion,  or  rebinding  of  them  all,  run  the  teachings  of  re- 
incarnation, karma  and  universal  brotherhood.  And  it  is 
needless  to  remark  that  all  of  them  endeavored  to  make 
this  latter  teaching  practical.  The  golden  rule  is  found  in 
the  mouths  of  all  of  them,  as  was  to  have  been  expected. 
Below  are  a  few  instances  taken  mostly  from  the  teachings 
of  their  disciples. 

Confucius,  500  B.  C. —  Do  unto  another  what  you  would 
have  him  do  unto  you.  Thou  needest  this  law  alone.  It 
is  the  foundation  for  all  the  rest. 

Aristotle,  385  B.  C. — We  should  conduct  ourselves 
toward  others  as  we  would  have  them  act  towards  us. 

Pittacus,  650  B.  C. —  Do  not  to  your  neighbor  what  you 
would  take  ill  from  him. 

Thales,  464  B.  C. —  Avoid  doing  what  you  would  blame 
others  for  doing. 

Isocrates,  338  B.  C. —  Act  towards  others  as  you  would 
desire  them  to  act  towards  you. 

Sextus,  406  B.  C. — What  you  wish  your  neighbors  to  be 
to  you  such  be  to  them. 

Ilillel,  50  B.  C. —  Do  not  to  others  what  you  would  not 
like  others  do  to  you. 

There  are  many  more  quotations  which  show  the  real, 
inner  agreement  better  than  a  host  of  external  forms. 
For  example: 

Buddha  —  A  man  who  foolishly  does  me  wrong,  I  will 
return  to  him  the  protection  of  my  ungrudging  love ;  the 
more  evil  comes  from  him,  the  more  good  shall  go  from 
me.  Hatred  does  not  cease  by  hatred  at  any  time ;  hatred 
ceases  by  love ;  this  is  an  old  rule. 

Lao-Tse  —  The  good  I  would  meet  with  goodness.  The 
not  good  I  would  meet  with  goodness  also.  The  faithful  I 
would  meet  with  faith.     The  not  faithful  I  would  meet 


170  THE    EVIDENCE   OF   IMMORTALITY 

with  faith  also.  Virtue  is  faithful.  Recompense  injury 
with  kindness.  ' 

Manu —  By  forgiveness  of  injuries  the  learned  are 
purified. 

Kwan-Yin —  Never  will  I  seek  nor  receive  private,  in- 
dividual salvation;  never  enter  into  final  peace  alone;  but 
forever  and  everywhere  will  T  live  and  strive  for  the  uni- 
versal   redemption   of   every  creature     throughout     the 

world. 

Philo,  the  Essenian  —  It  is  our  first  duty  to  seek  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness. 

Socrates,  voicing  the  divine  wisdom  left  as  the  heirloom 
of  Greece  by  Pythagoras  —  It  is  not  permitted  to  return 
evil  for  evil. 

If  men  would  seek  for  point!  of  agreement  in  their 
separate  faiths,  and  rejoice  when  a  new  one  had  been 
found,  how  quickly  would  all  this  religious  intolerance 
disappear;  how  the  hands  of  all  who  recognize  : 
ence  and  adoration  as  the  highest  and  holiest  faculty  of 
the  soul  would  be  strengthened  for  their  common  conflict 
with  those  who  believe  and  teach  that  man  is  but  as  the 
beasts  of  the  field,  who  are  to-day,  and  to-morrow  are  not. 
The  Nazarine  declared  that  he  had  other  sheep  "Not  of 
this  fold";  Chrishna,  that  "In  whatever  way  men  ap- 
proach me,  in  that  way  do  I  assist  them,"  and  again,  "In 
whatever  form  a  devotee  desires  with  faith  to  worship,  it 
is  I  alone  who  inspire  him  with  constancy  therein." 

He  who  reveres  the  God-like  man,  and  he  who  wor- 
ships the  man-like  God,  may  both  have  the  same  thought 
in  their  inmost  heart.  Certainly,  all  who  worship  Tl  I  AT. 
under  whatever  term  they  may  seek  to  make  it  compre- 
hensible to  the  finite  .intellect,  ought  to  have  no  quarrel 
over  words,  and  he  who,  in  a  spirit  of  sympathy  and  tol- 


THE  WORLD'S   CRUCIFIED   SAVIOURS 


171 


erance  for  all,  studies  the  inner  essence  of  the  world's 
great  religions  will  quickly  discover  that  words,  and 
words  alone,  divide  them,  and  that  if  one  is  true,  all  are. 
And  who  will  dare  assert  that  all  religions  are  false  ? 


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Key  to  Theosophy 


A  clear  exposition  in  the  form  of  question  and  answer  of  the 
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Karma 

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Isis  Unveiled 

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The  Evidence  of  Immortality 

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Standard  Theosophical  Books 


Emotion,  etc..  together  with  a  careful  study  of  the  effect  of  the 
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(irave.  and  defining  dearly  the  relation  of  the  .Mortal  t<>  the 
Immortal  .Man.  with  two  appendices:  "In  Deeper  Dreamland.'' 
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The  Secret  Doctrine 

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and   Developnfent;    ThePavenai  of  Man  on   Earth.    Part  l\  The 
Evolution  of  Symbolism;  Efjrmbolisjni  and  Ideographs;  The 
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